Low Key Lighting

Just like with the High Key lighting, I googled and looked on YouTube how different people used Low Key lighting and how I might go about it. I then researched different photographers that use Low Key lighting to see what inspired me the most.


Nadav Kander:

Nadav Kander has done various different projects, varying from portraits to landscapes. His portrait shots and done in a studio and they are mainly of famous individuals. He uses a mixture of low key and high key lighting, and his low key lighting shots all look different as he has lit them differently.

I really like the lighting in the image above, as only one part of the face is well lit and the rest fades into the background. Even though you can't see all of the details of the woman's face, you can clearly see her eyes which I like, because you can tell a lot from a person's eyes. This is an interesting way of showing someone's personality and I want to try to do something similar in my shoot (showing the person's personality in a subtle and simple way).

This image is different from the previous one because it is more well lit and so you can see all of the features on his face. Both images are in black and white which gives an interesting effect, but they both look so different because of they way they are lit. I think, even though you can see all of the features on his face, he is not showing a lot of obvious emotion, and the only way that you can see it is through his eyes. I like how the studio lights are shining from his eyes which causes a nice reflection. I want to combine the ideas from both images when I take my photos.

Jonathon Oakes:

These two Low Key lighting images by Jonathon Oakes both really interest me, mostly because of the expressions on the models' faces. They have quite a simple expression but I think it tells a lot. In the first image, the man is resting his head on some form of netting and has a lost expression on his face, which leaves the viewer to create a story of what is happening. I like how the studio lighting is falling on his face- making only the front of his face stand out and the rest of the image fades into the shadows. When I take my Low Key lighting images I want to set up the lighting so that it does this to the models face.

The second image is very simple, with the woman just looking straight ahead but not at the camera. The lighting is similar to the previous image as it lights up her face but her hair and the rest of her body fades into the shadows. I love the expression on her face because even though it is very simple, it looks like there is a lot of emotion behind it. When I take my images I want to create something similar to this, where the model is showing subtle yet strong emotion. The lighting on this image is a lot softer than in the other image, and I think this creates a nice effect, and almost makes it look like a painting.

Final Images:

Myself and Will had the idea to cover India in glitter and make her wear a mask in the shoot, as she loves glitter and girly things. I wanted to focus on her face as this is what I had researched. India said that she was really insecure about her mouth and didn't usually like showing it in photos, but she didn't mind making it really obvious that she was showing her mouth. I liked the idea of emphasising her insecurities (as long as she was fine with it) and so thought it would be a really interesting thing to photograph.

These were a few of my favourite shots from the shoot. I like the lighting in the images as the background is really dark but the glitter on India's body stands out.

We brought glitter gel and the mask to the shoot, and asked India to decorate the mask herself so that it would be more personal. She was wearing a plain top but lowered it below her armpits so that we could decorate her body with glitter and the clothes would not show in the shot. India was really easy to work with and came up with most of the poses herself, and shooting her was not at all awkward.

We did do a couple of shots of Alex and his toy Kermit the Frog, but this was only because we didn't know what else to do for him. I knew that I would just use photos of India because I didn't think I could create anything interesting with Alex. However, here are some photos that we took:

We used the same lighting as we used for India but we told him to stand up and just pose with Kermit. This relates to some of my practitioner research for the High Key lighting as it is very laid back and fun. I don't think the photos work well though and that is why I just want to use the photos of India.


Final, printed images:

I did not heavily edit the images before I printed them. The last image was in the style of Nadav Kander as it is in black and white and only part of the face is well lit. However there is my own style added because of the glitter and the fact that it is not just the face that is in the shot. 

I like the first shot because of the pose that India is pulling and the mask that she is wearing. The lighting is effective because it hits one half of the mask and then the other half fades into the background.

Overall I am really happy with this shoot and think I got some successful images. I think I edited them the right amount because too much editing wouldn't have made them look effective.

Evaluation

I really enjoyed doing this shoot, almost as much as the High Key shoot. Coming up with the idea was quite easy as India suggested that she should be covered in glitter and the fact that she was insecure about her mouth. She was really cooperative in the shoot and I found it incredibly easy to photograph her. Alex was also easy to photograph, but neither me or Will could come up with an idea of what to do with him, and so I thought it would just be easier to use two photos of India for my final images.

I think there is a clear link between my images and the photographers I researched, as in the photographer's research you can see subtle emotion in the models' eyes, and I think I've done the same in my images.

I like how one final image is in black and white and the other is in colour, so you can see the difference between the two. I left the top final image in colour because you can see the whole of the top of her body and so I wanted to define the glitter. I also wanted to define the colour of her mask, which she decorated herself. The image in black and white is successful because half of her face is well lit by the studio lighting, and then the other half fades away into the background, making it look like a shadow and making the image look more mysterious.

When I printed off the images, the one in black and white was quite a bit darker than I expected so you have to look quite closely to see the details on India's face. I like this mistake though, because it means that the image is more personal, as you have to spend more time looking at it.
Printing all of my final images went smoothly and I din't have any problems with it, which was really good as I had some problems with printing my Zine project.

High Key Lighting

For this brief, we had to photograph both India and Alex together as a group portrait with high key lighting. Before coming up with any ideas, I wanted to research different high key lighting shoots that other people have done to get an idea of what I wanted the images to look like. To do this, I simply googled 'high key lighting' to see how different people lit their images, and I also looked at tutorials on YouTube. This was just the basis of my research to get more of an understanding of how to light an image, as I've never done studio work before this project.

I then looked at various photographers' work that used high key lighting to see what inspired me the most.

Alan Mahon:

Alan Mahon is a sports photographer who uses both high key and low key lighting. I find all of his images quite inspiring as most of them capture an important moment when the individual/group is doing the sport. Some images are of the individual/group performing their sport, and others are of them simply looking at the camera and posing.

I like the images above because even though they were told to do those positions, there is a natural feel towards them because the individuals look like they are concentrating hard on what they are doing. I think I prefer these action shots to the normal posed 'look at the camera' shots, so when I take my images I want to do something similar, where Alex and India are maybe moving around instead of simply looking at the camera, as I think that's too simple.

George Brooks:

Even though I said that I preferred the action shots to the average posed shots, I think that Brook's work is not just average and it is unique. His studio work is filled with groups or individuals having fun and laughing in front of the camera, which really inspires me.

In these images, you can see that the individuals are having fun in front of the camera and it not just a simple 'look at the camera' shoot. I think that this links everybody in the image together and shows their personality.

In my shoot, I want to do something similar to this in the sense that I want to do something quite lighthearted and almost comical, whilst also showing the individuals' personalities.

Ideas:

After asking Alex and India a few more questions after the initial interview, I found out that neither of them particularly liked being photographed and found it awkward, and so thought it would be interesting to cover their faces with something. Both myself and Will came up with the idea of putting bags on their heads. I had some plain brown bags in my uni room and so we thought it would be good to use these, and maybe draw faces on them. This links to my photographer research because it is lighthearted and fun, but also shows their personality (they don't like being photographed.)

How the shoot went:

I thought that the shoot went extremely well and could not have gone much better. Alex and India did their shoot before ours and I was happy with the light set-up that they did (two lights in front of the individuals and two lighting the background). At first we just got Alex and India to stand still with the bags on their heads while we took photos of them. However the shoot became very laid back as we were playing music at the same time, and they suddenly started dancing around the studio. This was funny but also made some great photographs. I think that because the bags were over their heads and they could not see anything, they were not conscious of anyone watching them and photos being taken and so they did not hold back. I was not anticipating this but was thrilled with the result. I think they both interacted well with each other which made the photos look really effective. I believe that the images are good but funny, which is different to the average High Key photo.

Final Images:

Here are a few of my favourite images from the shoot. They are varied even though they are of exactly the same subject. I like the mixture of poses that they are doing- standing still, dancing, sitting down. This gives me a lot of choice for my final image that I will print out.

Final, printed images:

When editing this image on photoshop, I made it slightly darker and turned up the contrast a little bit, but did not do much else with it. I think that the image is similar to the photographers I researched as the subject is really lighthearted and fun.

Evaluation

I think that this brief was my favourite out of all of the briefs I did in this project because it was the most fun and I think I got some really good photos out of it. We lit the studio a lot differently to how we did in the still life shoot, and it was really interesting to compare how to do different lighting to get more of a knowledge of studio lighting. I am a lot more confident in this area now which will be really useful for the future.

I think that the idea of having bags on their heads is really simple, and initially I didn't know if it would work at all because it might have ended up like the still life shoot. However, it ended up a lot better than I expected and I was really pleased with the result.

I think the reason why it worked so well was because music was playing when we were taking the images, and so Alex and India could relax and almost forget that we were taking photos of them. Also, they had bags over their heads and so could not see each other, or us taking photos of them. This made them relax much more. I think that if they did not have bags on their heads and we asked them to do the same positions, they would have been a lot more awkward and stiff, because they knew exactly when we were taking photos of them and could see us looking at them.

Still Life

In the brief for the studio lighting project I found out that I was being paired with Will Heason, which I thought would be interesting as I had not been in a group with him before, and so had never worked with him.

The first brief that we were given was the still life brief, which is apparently the most difficult brief compared to the high-key and low-key briefs. We have been allocated with another group and have to take images of objects that reflect their personalities in some way.

To get an idea of what we are going to take photos of, we had to interview the group that we were allocated with to take photos of them/their objects, to get an idea of their personalities.
The sort of questions that we asked were:
-Favourite colour?
-Favourite food/drink?
-Do you enjoy any sports/outdoor activities?
-Favourite childhood cartoon?
-Is their any particular childhood memory that stands out?
-How would you describe your personality?
-What is your worst nightmare?

We wanted to ask some simple questions to get the basis of their personality, and then ask ones such as 'what is your worst nightmare' to get an interesting and unique subject for our shoots.

We got lots of answers from the pair but nothing that really stood out to me.

Before taking the images on the 11th of March, I want to research different still life photographers to see what influences me the most:

James Day:

James Day takes images of portraits, landscapes and still life. His still life images are really inspirational to me because there is such a range of them and he manages to make simple objects look really interesting. The images that really stood out to me were his 'On Black' images. He used a strong light shining in front of the object and used a black background. This made the objects really stand out and didn't create any shadows. I really liked how the objects looked, even though he used quite random and 'boring' objects such as a bowl of lettuce and a dustpan and brush. The idea of making simple things look interesting by the way it is lit really inspires me and I hope to achieve this in my still life shoot.

Giles Revell:

Revell's still life images also really inspired me. I love the colours used in some of his projects, and the contrast between the complicity of some images and the simplicity of others, but they are all as interesting as each other. One project that stood out most to me was his 'medicinal plants' project. At a glance this image just looks like a black and white image of a flower, but it's meaning is more complicated than that. The plants were digitally sectioned across defined planes revealing their anatomical form. The photos were taken to emphasise their clinical usage rather than their aesthetic beauty, but when you glance at the image (especially the one below) it simply looks like a black and white photo of flowers. This links to James Day's work because the images seem simple at a glance but they are more complicated than they appear.

My Work:

After looking at the work of James Day and Giles Revell, I was inspired and knew that I wanted to do something simple yet effective in my shoot. However, after interviewing Alex and India to get an idea of what to do, myself and Will weren't exactly sure on what to do. We had to do a shoot on the following Tuesday after we received the brief (18th of March), and so we thought that we would just experiment with the lighting and then use the studio again later that week to shoot our final pictures. Therefore, we decided to bring in simple blue and pink toothbrushes in a glass to test.

After learning how to do simple lighting techniques in the Uni workshops, it was quite easy to set up the lighting. I had never worked with studio lighting before the workshops and so didn't find it as easy as Will did, who has worked with it many times before. I found working with studio lighting really useful because I'm sure that I will need these skills in the future.

This was the lighting set-up that we did with our experimental shoot. At first we weren't sure how to light the glass, as you can see from a couple of the photos below. Will had the idea to put one light below the glass and light it from there, but I thought it looked too dark and you couldn't see the glass properly. We then asked the Uni technicians how to do it properly, and we found out that we needed to set it up like it is above. 

After taking away the light from below the glass, we lit the toothbrushes from around them to try and get the high key effect. However, I thought there were too many strong reflections of the light on the glass and I didn't like the shadows.

After experimenting lots with the positions of the lights, I was happy with the final picture. We also places black objects either side of the glass to create the slightly black colour on the edges. Even though I'm not going to use these photos as my final Still Life images, because they don't have anything to do with Alex and India, it was fun to experiment with the lighting.

Final Images

After thinking more about what we could shoot, I thought it would be a good idea to ask Alex and India 'what do you have in your uni room that you've brought from home, that you couldn't leave behind because it means too much to you?'. It was difficult to get in touch with India and she didn't turn up on the day of the shoot so we did not manage to get a still life shot for her. However, Alex answer was his toy Kermit the Frog. This was quite surprising as he does not look like the sort of person to have toys in his uni room, so I thought it would be a good thing to photograph. This is because it is a simple object (a toy) but has a more complicated meaning behind it (Alex couldn't be without it). I thought that we could also make the lighting more complicated to make the images look really interesting.

We decided that we wanted the lighting to make the toy look quite dark and mysterious, which is the opposite to how it makes Alex feel and how it is portrayed on tv; as a friendly childhood character. We experimented quite a lot with the lighting. As you can see from the first image, the light was too bright and had a slight yellow tinge to it.

Final, printed images:

I didn't heavily edit these images at all, I turned up the contrast slightly and make them a bit darker, so the shadows on the toy's face blends in more.

Evaluation

I found the still life shoot quite stressful because, probably because it was the first shoot of the project, I found it hard to get answers from Alex and India and so get an idea of what to do for the shoot. However, it was good to experiment with the studio lighting and even though I didn't use glass in my final shoot, it was good to learn how to light it because I might need it in the future. I liked how we lit Kermit in the final shoot as I think we made it look quite dark and mysterious, which is the complete opposite to how it makes Alex feel; comfortable and at home. I liked learning about the lighting and it was very beneficial to me as I know I will use it in the future.

I did not like our subject of simply photographing a toy as I think it is way too simple an idea and is not interesting enough. I think that it was fun to experiment with the lighting but the fact that it was just a toy makes me feel like it wasn't the best idea that I could have come up with. I did like my question 'what is in your uni room that you brought from home, that you could not live without?' as I think this has a lot of meaning, but I didn't particularly like the object.

It would have been better if we could've shot India's object, however she did not turn up on the day of the shoot. I would've booked out the studio on another day but they were all booked up. This is disappointing as if we took photos of her object, I would've had a lot more choice to choose for my final still life image.