Low Key Lighting Diagram

By placing the light closer to the subject the.

Low key lighting diagram. The photos come out youthful and simple but sophisticated. It was only natural to follow up with an article about low key and high lighting as both are tightly related to contrast. Low-key lighting requires only one key light optionally controlled with a fill light or a simple reflector.

The following diagram shows you the general setup for a four-light high-key lighting setup. Usually low-key lighting is very close to a subject and the light source is typically dimmer to accommodate this. Thats why you often see it in advertising and television shows.

The low key technique uses a lot of darker tones shadows and blacks the really deep ones. Sometimes you want to make a diagram of your photo session. Low-key lighting features prominent shadows and many near-black tones with minimal midtones and highlights serving as poignant counterpoint to all that darkness.

The image above of my oldest daughter was taken using a single light inside a very large soft box that was positioned directly to one side and approximately 2 feet away from her. Low-key is a term that describes images that are dark and contain few highlight areas. High key lighting is used to produce images that encourage an optimistic upbeat reaction.

Meanwhile low key lighting mostly involves using directional light to create moody shadows on the model. It can be either a reflector or a second flashgun set to a lower power than the key light. The uncoated muslin warms the light up about 400 degrees Kelvin.

This type of setup is usually shot against a dark background. After covering the definitions and some samples of High Key and Low key images it is time to show some setups that will enable you to take High Key and Low Key pictures. If you are new to portrait photography the lighting terminology can be overwhelming.