What Effect Does Low Key Lighting Have
To sum up low key lighting is a highly dramatic way of enhancing the contrast in an image that has roots tracing way back to the Baroque period and beyond.
What effect does low key lighting have. Using a low key light with little or no fill light results in images with deep shadows. Low-key lighting is also often used in cinema to create dramatic moody effects in many types of films from romance to horror. You can achieve this effect indoors with studio equipment or some ingenuity and outside at.
For low-key lighting you need to limit the ambient light in your scene and closely control your light source. Low-key lighting is a photographic style that relies on dark tones and deep shadows to create an image with impact. Since white or light-colored walls reflect light easily low-key lighting is most effective when shot against dark backgrounds.
You can also use strategically placed black fabric to reduce light and control whats bouncing around. Photography is no different low-key lighting accentuates an illusion of the third-dimension in a photograph plus you can use postproduction to enhance its effect. Photos taken in low key lighting therefore have very minimal amounts of mid-tones and whites.
Traditional photographic lighting three-point lighting uses a key light a fill light and a back light for illumination. Low-key lighting is mainly used for horror films due to the effects it creates. Or a moody product photo.
A low key setup is high contrast and relies on the careful positioning of the key light for the lighting style to look best. The long and sharp shadows that are cast over the actors and background of the scene can intensify the effect the film has on the audience. The result of low key lighting is a very dramatic image with tension and mystery.
Low-key is common in most films that want to portray a darker side of a story. The main use of low-key lighting as a creative visual tool is to accentuate the shape and contour of a subject by leaving additional lighting fill light for example at a bare minimum or omitting it entirely. For low-key lighting you need to limit the ambient light in your scene and closely control your light source.