Low Key Photography. A Beginner’s Guide.
To become a professional photographer, you need to be able to shoot in different genres and in different techniques. One of these techniques is low key photography.
What is low key
This is a photograph in which dark tones predominate over light tones. But, as in a regular frame, the full spectrum of colors will be used, the difference is only in their proportion.
Example of a photo taken in low key:
Photos taken using this technique have only a few light tones and are dominated by dark tones.
This technique is often used in portrait photography, with an advantage for men. This is due to the fact that this effect emphasizes the cheekbones and other facial features, also when photographing in the Nude genre.
It is known that if the photo is dark as a whole, the viewer’s gaze is directed to its light parts. In this case, this effect is used to direct the viewer’s interest, say, to certain areas in a portrait photo.
There are several ways to achieve low key photography.
1. Photograph in minimal light, and the frame will be dominated by the textures of dark colors.
2. Photograph a scene that contains midtones in brightness, but shoot with underexposure and with negative exposure compensation.
3. In Photoshop or any other editor, you can hong kong phone number library lower the exposure by 1-2 stops, and also add vignetting, convert to black and white.
If you are taking photos in a photo studio, use a dark background (not necessarily pure black, but desirable). The clothes on the model should also be dark. Studio lighting usually includes small soft boxes, beauty dishes or point narrow sources, such as monoblocks with honeycombs and barn doors.
We set the key light at an angle of 45 degrees relative to the model and above eye level.
Then the light will fall on the subject from the side
Not highlighting the background too much. To darken the background even more, you can turn the light source slightly away from the background.
The main thing when taking low key the amount depends on many photos is to set the exposure correctly. When setting the exposure, you need to focus on the light areas of the object and make sure that they are not over or underexposed.
Low key photography is dramatic and draws japan data special attention to itself. These are creative shots, requiring an idea from the author and technical execution.