Portraiture low key lighting - Definition Post

High key lighting is an image with predominant light tones, often used in beauty, and low key lighting is an image with predominant dark tones, implying strength and power. High key lighting is often associated with females, whereas low key lighting is often associated with males. 

Snoot-this object allows you to control the lightings direction, and radius. They can help isolate the individual, when using flash in the studio. 

Honeycomb-allows you to tighten the beam of light, it doesn't create an as intense beam of light like the snoot does.

Reflector dish-this allows the light to reflect back onto the subject. It covers the flash head, and allows the redirection of light.

Irving Pen:

Irving pen uses both high, and low key lighting in his images, he uses the above pieces of equipment to achieve this. He was well known for his established fashion photography, and portraiture. Pen was also one of the first photographers to present his subjects on a grey background. Its's evident below how he would base his lighting techniques on the gender of the individual, with low key lighting often being used for males, and high key lighting for females. 

These images below both highlight high key lighting, it is interesting to see that both of these images are of females, this is due to the high key lighting expressing femininity. 

The high key lighting used helps capture the vast amount of freckles on the individuals face, this adds detail to the image.

The image above was one of Pen's fashion shoots, we can see this by the 'VOGUE' logo in the bottom right corner, therefore he would have used the high key lighting as this lighting technique often used in beauty images, in order to portray femininity and to capture all of the details within the image. 

These images below are both examples of Irving's work, showing low key lighting. It is interesting that both these images below are of males, this may be due to the darker tones linking to masculinity.

This image uses low key lighting, the expression held on the mans face works well with the lighting technique as he looks sad, therefore the darker tones in the image portray this further. 

The man appears shocked in this image, as he has wide eyes. The low key lighting adds to the atmosphere of the photograph, by making it mysterious as you cannot see all of the image. 

Low Key Lighting - Image Bank

I like this image as you cannot see the face of the individual, only the outline which allows us to gather that the individual is a male. This image creates ambiguity and this inspires me to try this in my photographs. 

This photograph is interesting as it creates low key lighting on an animal not a human. The lighting helps create a masculine appearance to the image, where as high key lighting creates a more feminin appearance. The lighting helps create a menacing ambiance which adds to the atmosphere of the image, enhancing the cats stare. 

The above image is interesting as the image is of a female, where usually high key lighting is used; however, low key lighting is used in this image, meaning that you cannot see half of the females face, this creates a mysterious atmosphere.

The above image creates ambiguity as you can only see half of the mans face. The man in the image is looking downwards, appearing as though he is disappointed. This leads us to question as to why he may possibly be feeling this way. I would like to try and recreate this mood in some of my images.

This photograph is of a female, again you can only see half of her face, and she is looking directly at the camera, in contrast with the images above whereby the subjects are not looking into the camera. She is also holding something over her head, suggesting she is hiding from something. 

This image contrasts the ones above it as it is of several people, not just one person. The lighting hits all their faces the same, apart from the first and last individuals, where the first individual's face is darker than the last individuals.

Low Key Lighting - Definition Post

Low key lighting is a style of photography whereby you use lighting to your advantage in order to create a dark photograph, with light reflecting slightly off the other side of the individuals face (a reflector helps to achieve this.) It helps enhance the contours of an object. This effect is commonly used in horror films, as it aids in alienating the viewer.

Low key lighting is used in:

• fashion
• film
• media
• television
• magazines

Here is an example of where low key lighting is used in a film:

As you can see there's many shadows cast over the image, which create a sense of mystery. The low key lighting helps create a chiaroscuro effect. 

Here is an example of low key lighting being used not on people, but objects:

This image is different to usual images of low key lighting, as it's of food objects, not individuals. 

Below are various ways in which you can set up the studio in order to achieve a low key lighting effect:

This is how the studio will be set up in order to achieve the low key lighting effect. 

Work Diary&Progression- Low key lighting- Portraiture

Evaluation:

To shoot these images we used a shutter speed of  1/125, F-stop 16 and ISO 200.

This was the set up in the studio (image below.) I had the reflector to the left of the subject, the light on the right hand side (I adjusted the distance and height of this), and the subject in the middle of this all.

In today's lesson we were given the task of using the studio to photograph portraiture, creating a low key lighting effect in our images. I used the camera settings of shutter speed- 1/125, F-16 and ISO 200. This allowed me to learn further how to used lighting to my advantage when photographing in the studio in order to create different effects (e.g. low key lighting.)


The image on the left is edited, whereas the one below is the original image. 

This is my best photograph of the day as i believe I've photographed low key lighting extremely well here. I believe this as although the left hand side of the face is darker you can see the light is reflected as you can see her left cheek bone. This occurs as i used a white reflective polystyrene board, to help reflect back the light from the flash, this is known as the reflector. 

When I edited the image i turned up the saturation, as previous to this it is was slightly dull, by turning up the saturation it has made the face have more colour. 
If I was to shoot this again i would ensue she was not bent forward, as her body looks slightly hunched over. 

This is my worst image of the day as the subject I'm photographing doesn't hold a direct emotion on their face, also it looks as though she's pushing her head forward, instead of sitting upright. In addition, the right hand side of the face is slightly over exposed, this has occurred due to the light hitting the face too closely. 

If i was to reshoot this I would place the light further away, and ensure she was sitting upright, not with her head pushed forward. 









Progression:

Final 5 Images- Low Key Lighting Portraiture

To shoot these images we used a shutter speed of  1/125, F-stop 16 and ISO 200.

Portraiture low key lighting- Contact Sheet