Chapter 21

Low-Key And High-Key Lighting

Using somber colors that tend to convey a mysterious
atmosphere, the low-key lighting is a product of the
predominantly dark tones with a little, next to none light tones
and minimum lighting contrast. When any area of uniform density
defines a tone that can be distinguished from lighter or darker
parts of the picture, extreme contrast in a photograph is refered
to the pictures consisting of just two tones: black and white.
Thus, having no shades of grey in between those two tones,
extreme contrast photographs tend to be harsher in appearance
than those that possess a broad range of intermediary grey tones
between black and white. It is important to understand that the
low-key photographs composed of predominantly dark tones do not
completely exclude light tones, but the presence of the latter is
minimal when compared to the presence of the dark tonal range in
the photo. You can say that the photograph is a low-key one if
two thirds or more of all the tones in the picture are dark. The
pictures of the cosmic-warier at the helm, camel and the carving
on the tree-trunk are a good example of the low-key lighting.
High-key lighting is when two thirds, or the most of the
image consists of predominantly light or pale tones. Producing a
delicate effect, dominance of the light tones in the picture
could produce a flatly appearing image, as in this photo of the
egg. Nevertheless and more often, most photographs do have a wide
range of tones in them, and the high-key or low-key photos are
rather an exception than the rule in photography.