What I learned today: a def­i­n­i­tion of low key light­ing.

From Wikipedia:

Low-key light­ing is a style of light­ing for pho­tog­ra­phy, film or tele­vi­sion. It attempts to cre­ate a chiaroscuro effect. In tra­di­tion­al pho­to­graph­ic light­ing, three-point light­ing uses a key light, a fill light, and a back light for even illu­mi­na­tion. Low-key light­ing requires only one key light, option­al­ly con­trolled with a fill light or a sim­ple reflec­tor.

Low key light accen­tu­ates the con­tours of an object by throw­ing areas into shade while a fill light or reflec­tor may illu­mi­nate the shad­ow areas to con­trol con­trast. The rel­a­tive strength of key-to-fill, known as the light­ing ratio, can be mea­sured using a light meter. Low key light­ing has a high­er light­ing ratio, e.g. 8:1, than high key light­ing, which can approach 1:1.

The term “low key” is used in cin­e­matog­ra­phy to refer to any scene with a high light­ing ratio, espe­cial­ly if there is a pre­dom­i­nance of shad­owy areas. It tends to height­en the sense of alien­ation felt by the view­er, hence is com­mon­ly used in film noir and hor­ror gen­res.

I always under­stood the term in a venac­u­lar kind of way, mean­ing a kind of dark envi­ron­ment (a jazz club imme­di­ate­ly comes to mind), but when I took on a recent project put forth at Uta­ta, this is the first pic­ture I entered.

The project, enti­tled “Iron Pho­togr­pher” to include a flower, some­thing rusty and low key light­ing. I felt the pic­ture met 2 of the 3 cri­te­ria and I under­ex­posed to try to meet the 3rd.

Placed along­side the oth­er sub­mit­ted pic­tures, my pho­to pops out much lighter then the oth­ers. So I thought deep­er about the term and real­ized that “low key” is prob­a­bly a tech­ni­cal term that I have giv­en lit­tle thought to. How often have I seen “key grip” in the cred­its of a movie and not tak­en the time to look up what it means.

The Wikipedia def­i­n­i­tion actu­al­ly and briefly explains nor­mal pho­to­graph­ic light­ing as hav­ing 3 con­sid­er­a­tions, a “key” light being the most impor­tant (the “key” light­ing illu­mi­nat­ing the most impor­tant fea­ture of the sub­ject), a fill light to reduce con­trast and a back light to fur­ther even out the shad­ows. Low key can result when you remove the fill and back light­ing. It also sug­gests the “chiaroscuro effect” which defines a large con­trast between light and dark through­out the entire pic­ture.

An image search on Google shows many low key exam­ples. And my image still appears too light.

I was think­ing that my pho­to has only one light source, the sun, but the prob­lem aris­es as the sun is reflect­ed off the grass in the back­ground, a back­light if you will that dis­tracts from the con­trast with­in the sub­jects, that is if you are aim­ing for “low key”.

So, I assume at this point that the pic­tures fails the 3rd cri­te­ria of low key light­ing as is gen­er­al­ly accept­ed and I need to try again. Maybe this can be sal­vaged using Pho­to­shop to alter the back­ground. Maybe an off cam­era flash, con­trol­ling the ambi­ent light of the back­ground with a fast shut­ter speed would accom­plish the feat.

Maybe the pic­tured failed but, FTW, the rea­son I impose projects on myself is to incite me to shoot and hope­ful­ly learn someth­ng I did not know before.