Studio Photography - High Key & Low Key lighting

Low key

Low key lighting is on a black background and uses only one main light . It accentuates the contours of a surface so it is often used when photographing men as it is quite flattering for a man to look quite 'rugged'. Here is an example i shot of Andy. I used one main light (a reflector) at one side of him, with 2 black boards in front of the light leaving a small gap in between them to let the small stream of light through. Its quite a moody and masculine light.

 

 

 

I will use this image as part of my submission because I like how just one side of his face is lit and the other side shows the texture and expression in this face due to the shadows created. I do really like the expression on his face. Andy isn't usually very comfortable at all in front of the camera and usually does a silly face to try and cover up his embarrassment, but I think I captured a very natural expression here which shows the real Andy. 

High Key

Hight key lighting is a lot more fun and lively and usually would require a 3 light setup, a white background and possibly a reflector to illuminate any shadows. This is very flattering lighting for women......but I used Andy again for this example. I also bumped up the contrast for this image.

 

Film Noir

Film noir is a  term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas.  It uses low key lighting with shadows to build narrative. 

 

For this image, I used the same lighting as the low key lighting, but this time, added a light with a honeycomb at the back pointing towards the black sheet at the back. A hammer was held infront of the light to create the shadow.

Studio Photography - Lighting

In our first session on studio photography, we were introduced to different lights and accessories that are used in a studio setup. We got in the studio and took a few shots of each other to see the difference between the different lights and accessories and discussed the possible uses for each of them.

My main model was Andy.......He definately prefers being BEHIND the camera........

Soft box

A soft box is an enclosure around the bulb made up of reflective side and back walls and a diffusing material at the front of the light. This modifies the hard light coming from the bulb and spreads it across the front panel, creating an even and diffused light. As the light is coming from a much larger source and not the small bulb, it gives a much softer light with less shadows. The soft box is used for portraits and fashion photography as the light is very flattering and gives a broad illumination.

Beauty dish

The beauty dish isn't as soft as a soft box but is still one of the softer lights. It gives a dramatic light that wraps around the subjects face. A beauty dish is used in portrait and fashion photography to generate a concentrated pool of light and produce its characteristic round catch light in the subject’s eyes.

Deep reflector   A deep reflector gives off a stronger light and gives more contrast. The inside of the deep reflector is shiny silver so gives a stronger effect than a mid reflector.

 

 

 

 

                Snoot

A snoot is a tube that fits over a studio light and allows the photographer to control the direction of the light beam. It concentrates the light through the small opening at the front allowing no light to come out sideways. The snoot gives a more concentrated and harsh source of light and can isolate a subject when using a flash. They are useful when shooting still life.

Umbrella with spill kill

 

 

When using a reflective umbrella, the lamp is positioned facing away from the subject, it shoots into the umbrella and the light is then reflected towards the subject. 

Studio Photography

Straight away when people think of studio photography, most will think of a white background and lots of big lights! However, there are lots of different types. Studio photography doesn't have to be in an actual studio with fancy lights and a white background, it is photography in a space where we have control of lighting and other things. Here are a few different types of studio photography........

 

 

 

Portrait Photography

Photographing people and what they look like using flattering lighting. With portraits, photographers would probably use a softer light for women and a more harsh light for men. Portraits are often taken for use of the people in the photograph e.g. family portraits to put on the family home walls or portraits of individuals for modelling portfolios etc.

 

 

 

 

Fashion Photography

 

Photography to display and help sell clothing and accessories. Fashion photography is most often used for advertisements or fashion magazines.

 

 

 

 

Food Photography

 

A still life specialization of commercial photography. The aim is to produce attractive photographs for use on packaging, menus and in cookery books and to aid in selling the product. Food photography is a collaberative effort and usually involves a photographer, a photographer's assistant, a food stylist, a prop stylist and an art director to get the food looking as scrummy as can be!!! 

 

 

 

 

Product Photography

 

Commercial photography, emphasizing the best features of the product and usually making logos stand out and be recognised in order to sell the product. Produced for advertisements, catalogues, magazines etc.

 

 

 

 

Still Life Photography

 

Inanimate objects usually photographed for creative, artistic purpose. Some still life photography you wouldn't think is shot in a studio set up but there are small tell-tale signs that lighting is being controlled such as shadows and highlights in certain areas that wouldn't necessarily be there in natural or available lighting conditions.

 

 

 

Animal Photography

 

 

 

A difficult type of photography involving uncooperative models! (although this one above seems to be an exception)

 

Brief - Exterior Location - Shooting

 

I took another walk round a woody area that I know to take some snaps for my exterior location brief. Some of the images in this post are just images to show you where I was and the environment I was in (like above and below) and some are ones that I will consider printing for the final work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this one the leaves on the outside (mostly in focus) almost frame the blurred reflection in the background. I love the colours in this image. I think they work really well. I bumped the saturation up a little bit to bring them ou more.

 

 

 

I photographed this with the intention of making it look quite surreal and abstract. It is an image that i have rotated so that it is upside down. I think this is one of my faveourites but i couldn't decide if it works better in colour or black and white (below).

 

 

 

Here is a similar image to the one above but in black and white. I think this one if harder to figure out what is actually going on in the image which makes it more abstract I think.

 

I only like a small section of this image (the top left) because the leaves in that section look perfect. The shape of them and the shadows on them look lovely and they are floating ontop of the water where the tree that they have come from is reflected into it. The other leaves in other parts of the image just look blurred and over exposed. It's a shame really because I would have liked this one.

 

 

 

This is another rotated image. It reminds me of walking through the woods with the sun shining through the branches. Quite mellow and serene. Again, it is quite dream-like as it is actually a reflection so not quite a clear image but distorted and surreal.

 

I took this because I noticed the shadow of the tree on the floor and liked how it feel. Changing it to black and white gave it quite a haunting feel. This image really reminds me of one of Lee Friedlander's images of a road side and the lamp posts in the street and the shadows they cast on the road, but mine is a natural version! The compisition is similar and the shadows.

 

 

 

I like that the leaves frame the subject in this image.

 

 

 

 

I like this image of the contrasting colours of blue and yellow. Also i like how the leaves in the foreground are blurred.

Field of View

Field of view refers to the angle of the image seen by the lens. A standard lens is meant to give around the same field of view as the human eye. Field of view is tightly related to focal length.

Focal length determines how much the lens alters the scene in terms of angle of view and magnification. Lower number focal lengths (such as 28mm) show a wider view, while higher number focal lengths (such as 300mm) magnify to parts of the scene.

 

 



 

Wide angle lens

 

 

Lenses with a low number focal length are called wide angle lenses, because they show a wide angle of view of the scene in front of you. They have a shorter focal length than a standard lens. They distort the image by pushing the distance away and increasing the amount of foreground. They also make closer objects seem much bigger than those in the background.

Wide angle lenses are useful for shooting interior spaces to give more depth to the image.

 

 

Standard lens

 

Standard lenses give a natural looking image that resembles what the human eye sees. They are best used when an accurate representation of a subject is needed.

 

 

Telephoto lens

 

Telephoto lenses compress the perspective and bring the distance a lot closer. They allow you to select a small section to photograph. Sports photographers and paparazzi swear by them!

 

 

 

 

 

Brief 1 - Photographers - Jorma Puranen

Jorma Puranen is a Finnish photographer. His most well known projects include 'Shadows, Reflections and All That Sort of Thing' and 'Icy Prospects'. I have had a look at images from both these projects and I am very much drawn to the latter.

His inspiration behind Icy Prospects came from reading histories of Polar expeditions and watching tourists in North Norway.

He said; 'For fifteen years I have been engaged in landscape projects in which I have prevented direct admiration of the landscape by putting something in between the viewer and the subject: transparent portraits, phrases in Latin, flags. They have served as obstacles of a kind, denying any admiration of Arctic landscapes as such. In Icy Prospects, the possibility of direct viewing is completely denied. What we see now is a mere reflection of the landscape/seascape'.

 To create the images for Icy Prospects, Puranen painted a wooden board with black, high-gloss acrylic and then took long exposures of the landscapes mirrored in its surface. The results are extremely painterly. I absolutely love them! I love how the brush strokes of the black paint and the reflections of the landscapes merge together creating a very painterly impression of nature.

I love these images of his below aswell.... I'm not sure what he has used but it looks like some sort of semi transparent material that the shadows of flowers and leaves have cast onto with the sunlight.






Looking at Puranen's work gives me so much inspiration. I really like how photographs of reflections can look like paintings and have that surreal, dream-like effect. I used to paint so can really appreciate these images. I find them so interesting. I think for my project, I will aim to create images that almost look like abstract paintings. I might experiment with using material between the camera and the subject to create these kind of effects. 

White Balance

All light sources give off different colour temperatures of light. White balance is a useful function on a digital camera because it acts as a digital filter to counteract the effects of colour casts.

All digital cameras have an auto white balance (AWB) setting which works by making the brightest element in the image white and then using that as a point of reference, adjusting all the other hues to create true to life colour. However, if there's no 'white' reference point, or the scene is dominated by one particular colour, the camera's AWB setting can be tricked into making the wrong decision. To counteract this, the digital camera also has a number of preset white balance modes; tungsten, fluorescent, daylight, cloudy, shade and flash.  

 

 These modes use a fixed temperature common to the specific light conditions and will usually produce more accurate colours that when using AWB.

There is also a custom white balance setting. With this setting, you take a shot of a white card under the light conditions you are in and the camera will record this as white. Then, it will use thats setting for all shots! Clever!

Some cameras will even allow you to input the exact Kelvin setting if you know the colour temperature of the light source being used.

If an image appears too warm or red, selecting a higher temperature setting such as 'daylight' or 'cloudy' and taking the picture again should give more accurate colours. Similarly, if the image appears to cool or blue,selecting a lower temperature setting will warm the image.

Here are some images I took to demonstrate the effects of the different white balance modes...

White fluorescent light

 Tungsten light

Cloudy

Shade

Daylight