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. 

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

Work Diary&Progression- Location Portraiture

Evaluation:

In today's lesson we were told to carry on with out portraiture theme, but this time not photographing in the studio, but on location-similar to Alec Soth. I enjoyed this shoot as I prefer shooting on location, in comparison to the studio, this is due tot he fact that you have more freedom to experiment with your images ion different locations; whereas in the studio you can only stay in that one location. I learned how to control my camera settings more, allowing me to get the right amount of lighting in my photograph, due to not having the luxury of changing the outdoor lighting like we can do in the studio. 

The image on the left is edited, whereas the one on the right is the original photograph. This is my best image of the day as in the portrait you're drawn to the face, due to the curving wall, almost acting as a leading line pointing you into the direction of the face. In addition, as you can see the background in the distance this creates a sense of perspective as you realise there's depth to the image. I like the way i edited the image as by making it darker it allows you to focus in on the face, the darkness of the image creates further tone, form and saturation of the lips. I also like the deadpan look on the face, as it compliments the dark contrast of the image implying a sense of seriousness. The eyes are looking straight at the camera, which creates a serious monotone appeal further. 

This was my worst photograph of the day, if i was to re-shoot this again i would ensure eye contact was made with the camera, and that the person was ready for the image to be taken- as they're in mid-conversation in this image. The angle of this image is good as it's unexpected/unique for a portrait image. I would ensure that she wasn't looking too far down, as it stops me from photographing her whole body, aswell as the face, due to her body being closed down, because of her leaning over the bars. 

Progression:

Final 5 Images- Location Portraiture

Contact Sheet- Location Portraiture

Research for Portraiture

Thomas Ruff:

Thomas Ruff is a portraiture artist. Personally, I do not like his images as I believe they're boring, and not 'art', due to the fact anyone can easily photograph images like these. 
Ruff may have used deadpan expressions to highlight the various details in individuals faces. The people in these images appear almost as dolls/not real people. Thomas would have done this using the lighting.
These images challenge norms as in the image on the right the man is on a pink background, whereas the woman is on a blue one. This is strange as blue is associated with boys, and pink with girls. 
 These images are extremely structured, and not free. Ruff used the deadpan expression to highlight how you don't know what the subject is feeling, whereas in normal portrait imagery you capture emotions. These images would have been shot on a high aperture score, due to the face, and the background being in focus (wide depth of field.)

Alec Soth:

 I like Alec Soth's images as he also captures the environment, and backdrop in which the image is photographed, as well as the portrait. This gives you a sense of perspective, as to how small us as humans are too the environment/world around us. In the image to the right, and the one below the backdrops are grand, which implies they're more than us as humans, and were merely a pinprick in the world. 
I like how in the photograph below, the man is captured with toy planes, this gives us an insight into his hobbies or likes- as clearly he enjoys planes/ building things, as his clothing appears as though he has been making objects, due to the splattered paint over it. 



Muted colours are used in Alec's photography, these imply calmness and silence as they're not saturated and extreme colours which would imply business and fun. However, the image above of the man lying down has slightly brighter colours, in contrast to the other two images. This image has more autumnal images, in the organs and browns. These images (especially the one of the man holding planes) would be shot on a lower aperture, due to the background being blurred (shallow depth of field.)

Alec Soth is considerably more interesting to me than Thomas Ruff as his images are not just on plain backgrounds, and include the environment in which the images are taken too.