How to Use Low Key Lighting for Dramatic Photography
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Normally as a photographer, you spend your time trying to avoid harsh shadows, especially on faces and around the subject's eyes. Check out my work on. Low-Key by Mo Dube Shadow Stalker Tucker by on Flickr A low-key image is one that contains predominantly dark tones and colours.
A popular one is to use two separate rooms. Here nature takes care of the darkness element and you need only find a good light source. Parking lots are also perfect places to find drastically variable lighting conditions ideal for creating really dramatic shots.
High-Key VS Low-Key Lighting Explained Simply by Lindsay Adler - This photo was taken with a Sony DSLR-A350, with an exposure of 0. If I'm photographing her face, I wanna see her profile.
High-key lighting is a classic look for portraits or product photography that minimizes shadows and produces a bright, vibrant and upbeat aesthetic. Although typically shot in the studio with lots of high-powered lights, it's possible to produce a similar look at home with some fairly basic kit. We'll talk you through how we captured these 'high-key' maternity portraits in the garden and give you some advice on camera settings and editing tricks so you can shoot them too. If you shoot out in the backyard on a bright and still day however, it's possible to achieve a similar look without any flash at all, or just a single flash for a touch of fill-in and a catch-light in the eyes. You'll need a bright day, so there's enough light, but avoid shooting in direct sunlight because there will be too much contrast and too many shadows for a realistic high-key effect. A shady spot where the natural light falling on your subject and background will remain balanced, even if the sun does come out, is an ideal place so you can keep shooting regardless of what the sun does. We used a background stand to hang our white sheet but you could use a clothesline or length of string instead. Make sure you set up in a shaded area to avoid any direct sunlight. As it was a partly sunny day for our shoot we set up in the corner of the garden under a large conifer tree to diffuse the sunlight. For the background we used a couple of white sheets attached to a portable background stand with some duct tape and a couple of big stones from the rockery to stop them blowing around it was windier than we'd have liked! You can pick up a portable background stand pretty cheaply like , but simply hanging your sheet from a clothesline or line of string across the yard will suffice. I am a beginner in photography and having camera Nikon DSLR 5200. I see many tutorials and video's and of course your's too they are fantastic. But now I want to click pictures but don't know the subject. I do random clicks. But did not get interesting. Now I plan to work with local photographers which usually click on wedding functions etc. Is it a right way to pursue in this or any other way, please guide me. Thank You, I know some would argue, but I wouldn't class these as high key shots. There are plenty of blacks and midtones here, and the only highlights are on the background. Suitable for masking and dropping a new background in mostly, or if you just want a blown out background. I still like the shots though. You mean a bright background itself will need less EC? The bright background might need EC just the same as snow to offset meter tendency to expose bright stuff to 'medium' value. You mean either spot or CW will make a better decision for the white background and so you will need to adjust less EC? I used to use spot meter for bright stuff like clouds or etc with EC set to +3. For my camera, this put me right before clipping with RAW. I imagine my spot meter would read the same for the white sheet. But, I think all metering works with the 18% gray ideal. CW and spot, surely. An old film camera let me take several spot readings it would average. I could use Partial, CW, Spot or Multi-spot basically being my own matrix Yeh. In ideal circumstances this method might more or less work. But you will loose some detail and tones in the model probably and you really don't have time to manipulate all the photos and what if the model has a white shirt. Really the only working solution is studio lights or manual hot shoe like yongnuo 2 for the background and at least 2 - 3 for the model. If it is a standing model even this would be problematic it is really tricky around the feet… The title of the article puts this in the category of 'do it yourself'. I don't feel like expectations were set very high. They spend time talking about making adjustments with sliders and using on-board flash. Fine things for many people. It is a fun idea for people to fool around with 'at home' and that might get them some good results. I am just mega-stoked that DPR didn't call this hot idea a 'hack'. Why would you need a studio light? You need some way to meter. You need a lightmeter and it is cheaper cause you don't need it to be for flash, hell, there are some apps for iphone that actually work pretty close or you could use a good gray card. Also, you may need some black flags, to give some contour if you are doing white on white, or some reflector. But that doesn't mean that you can't do it without studio flash. Of course studio flash will be a lot more flexible and be able to get a lot more styles than this one. I am not sure it is a valid technique without umbrellas and stands and.. Might warrant a little investigation. For those who don't understand…. You couldn't do that formula with colour transparencies, or colour negative film…it only worked well with black and white film. Not sure if that formula would work with digital shooting raw of course …. In film we exposed for the shadows to make sure detail was formed there. Development was then adjusted to avoid 'over developing' and loosing detail in the highlights. Because of the way digital sensors work, we cannot 'adjust development' for lost-highlights. We can adjust our development for the shadows however. Thus in digital you usually want to expose for the highlights and develop for the shadows. The only reason 'shoot for the shadows' didn't work for colour negatives was the use of a standardised development process. When developing yourself, it could still be used. For transparencies the way the image is formed you would need to expose for the highlights. Reply part 2: While I appreciate the effort the author has put into trying to simplify seamless white portraiture and in writing this article there really isn't any shortcut to high quality seamless white portraiture. If you want to know how to properly do a white background portrait I suggest you refer to the tutorial by Zack Arias. One caution, however, to prevent light bouncing off the background from causing the edges of the subject to be overexposed keep the overexposure of the background to no more than 1 stop unless you can place the subject around 12' from the background. Reply part 1: The title of this article is incorrect. The examples are not high key images, they are simply seamless white background portraits, the second of which is overexposed on one side. The correct definition of high key photographs can be found on Wikipedia. A high-key image consists primarily of light tones, without dark shadows. Light meters are calibrated in such a way as to suggest exposure variables to render an image with roughly even amounts of highlight and shadow - proper exposure. If you look at a histogram, often what you will see will resemble a standard bell curve throughout the tonal value range. A high key image will be a measurably sharper curve concentrated toward white. In this case and it is a perfectly appropriate methodology for blowing out a background you are simply ramping up EV exposure value when essentially full-frame metering which will simultaneously bring up subject highlights and lighten background, the deepest shadows will be largely preserved. And another poster is also right in saying that spot metering the subject would also achieve the same effect - in fact, more accurately. But this tutorial is aimed at those familiar with default metering.
It could be a streetlamp, moonlight, car headlights, or a flashlight that you brought along. So the things that I was looking at when I was talking to her here is I wanted to have separation between her fingers and her face. Try to keep the light from hitting the camera or the background. For this photo of a radio talk show host and his dog, I had him kneel in my kitchen at midday when the sun was streaming through the glass doors behind him. Okay, so what I'm gonna have you do is put your hands down a little bit and then your chin down just a little more, and pull back your left elbow. Here are a few more images to get you thinking outside the box. If you don't, no worries, you don't need one.
