Monday, 9 January 2017

Photography - High Key & Low Key Photography

High Key and Low Key photography make use of lighting and contrast (or lack thereof) to create a specific mood. Originally high key photography emerged as a solution for screens that could not correctly display high contrast ratios. Today capturing high key photos, like low key photos, is a stylistic choice in photography.

Deciding which style to choose for your photos all comes down to atmosphere as both are powerful tools for creating certain moods


With high key photography, multiple powerful sources of lighting are strategically positioned to eliminate harsh shadows from images, giving them a very light and optimistic feel. Components of the image with rich colors stand out and areas with lighter color wash out, almost to a white. High key is an excellent choice for both color and black and white photos.


With low key photography, lighting is reduced in order to produce images characterized by striking contrasts, dark tones, and shadows. Usually, a single source of lighting is used to achieve this composition. As a result, low key images often have a rather dark dramatic quality to them. Like high key, low key is a great choice for both color and black and white photos.





No comments:

Post a Comment