Technical Task 3A - high and low key lighting

High-key

High is is free from dark shadows. High key image feels airy and light, it's usually a happy picture. It's when in the image the bright and white tones dominate.

High Key lighting is a style of lighting that makes the whole image look very over-exposed, this means by making the image brighter than normal so that hardly any shadow was presence during taking the photo. High key basically means that the image's key tone is high, just as we can see in all of the examples that I have shown.  It produces image with no shadows, with bright white background. When looking at high key image, they give us a feeling of mainly happiness and a calm soft feeling. 

High key is usually done on a white background, but can also be done just on plain white wall. To do this photo you will need two light to illuminate our background. Then we need another light which is shinning directly on to our model. After research on high key I have realized that all studio photographers use the same settings, to get a blown, white background. They set up background light at least one f-stop over the subject light, which is usually f/11 and f/16. High key lighting can be great inside, in a studio as well as outside of a studio. If you wanted to create a high key image outside you would have to over-expose it.

High-key photographers

Kate Hopewell-Smith~

I really like Kate's high-key photography. I have really enjoyed looking through her gallery, as she capture's individual's characters in a beautiful as well as honest way. By doing this she creates some really lovely and beautiful as well as unique images which show a lot of emotions. She is very comfortable with what she's doing, and we can really see this in her photos as she likes to experiment quite a lot, but it always works out very well. I think my favourite photos from Kate's gallery are photos of children.

Angus Thomas~

Angus is a contemporary photographer, who does a lot of portrait photography, mainly high-key. He is an award-winning portrait photographer with a wide range experience. His ability to capture the moments in a very creative way, has earned him a respect and trust of all of his clients as well as booking agents. As a portrait photographer Angus's style is contemporary, but we can also see a little bit of tradition in all of his photography. Angus is a great inspiration for everyone. We can really learn a lot from him by just looking at his photos as well as get a lot of creative inspiration by looking at the composition of the photos, how to frame them and the most important thing, is the ideas of the photos, which are very creative.

Low-key

Low key lightning is a simple technique that can bring instant drama to our photos. It is a style of lighting that makes the whole image look very under-exposed. It's a type of picture that is dominated by dark tones. Low key is usually dramatic and full of mystery. It is necessary in creating a chiaroscuro effect. This lighting technique is the complete opposite to high key lighting, but all you have to do is under-expose the image by decreasing the aperture by two F stops. By under-exposing the image, it means that there hasn't been enough light going in to the lens to capture enough light onto the image which is being taken.

It's not very hard to create a low key image, because all you need is your camera and one light source. When choosing the light, we need to make the sure that it wouldn't reach the background. Depending on the results we are wanting, we can also use a reflector. Camera setting are simple, ISO needs to be set at the lowest, which is usually 100, and should not be changed through the photo shoot, as a low ISO will give us a good quality of a photo, as well as keeping it both dark and noise-free. They all you need to do is just to make sure you choose the right settings for shutter speed and aperture to achieve the best effect for the light that we have chosen. From then on, you just have to experiment with the angles, composition etc.

When using low key lighting, black and white photos are a popular choice while editing, as they really bring the light to the shadows. It also gives us the dramatic and mystery effect. When you look at low key images, it makes the viewer feel as if there is some mystery behind the image and this is because most of the images are dark. I think low key would also be good to take photos at night.

Low-key photographer

Sean McGrath~

Sean is a contemporary wedding photographer. I have found his by accident as he does except from lovely wedding photos a lot of amazing low key portraits. I really like his photos, as we can see that the contrast as well as the compositions of his photos are very thought through. Another important thing about Sean that I have spotted is that all of his photos are different. He's very creative and tries his new ideas all the time, which gave me a lot of inspiration and I should really think about this in my own photography. He also concentrates all every single small detail in his photos, I really like this photographer. 

Which style?

Personally, I really like both of the effect. I really like high key lightning on happy photos, they look really great, but for me is too much. Also my photo shoot in studio which will be based on the film Maleficent which is more kind of mystery film than happy film, because there is more evil than good. In this case the best style would be low key light, but I don't want them to be black and white as the film is new. So I will try to do it in colour, but the colours will be dark. As low key gives us a mystery feeling, I prefer to use it.