Lesson #4

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Lesson #4; High Key Photography
Topic Started: Jun 7 2006, 11:15 AM (179 Views)
kman627	Jun 7 2006, 11:15 AM Post #1
Unregistered	Welcome back everyone. Sorry for my absence, I had to cruise up to Reno for some business. But I'm back now and school is now back in session. Thanks to everyone for their inputs for this week. Based on some reccomendations, I've decided that this week we will be going high key photography. What the hell is high key photography? This is probably your first question so I'll give you the good ole' webster's definition: High Key: Term describing a photograph which contains large areas of light tones, with few mid-tones or shadows. If I were to give it my own definition, it would be as follows: Artistic use of hightlights and overexposure. Before anyone gets confused any further, take a look at some examples so you know exactly what we're working with here. http://www.pbase.com/isamar/image/52248031 http://www.flickr.com/photos/katebatstone/98913679/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/dawnmoo/148703151/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jameshenryellis/151638974/ Additionally if you just do a google image search for high key, you'll get a lot of examples there as well. So how do you do this? You've got a couple of options. You can always just shoot as you normally would and go crazy in post processing with your levels and curves adjustments. But my preffered way is to overexpose during capture. I've found that by doing this you get a much cleaner transition to true white. For this assignment you're going to need to do quite a bit of experimentation. Somethimes you can get a good high key image with just one stop over your normal exposure. Typically though you'll need to go farther than that. It's not uncommon to end up shooting two or three stops overexposed. Also try shooting at wide apertures to allow plenty of light to hit that sensor. If you're unsure how to do this, break out that owner's manual and learn how to read your camera's light meter and how to compensate and adjust your exposure. If you have any sopecific questions, feel free to ask. If you do not have a manual mode, then you'll probably need make your shots high key using software. Do this by adjusting your levels, brightness/contrast, and your curves tools. Your goal is to have few shadows and very little tonal depth in your image. Overall, your image should have a lot of true white along with a small bits of shadows and midtones. You'll be amazed at how much you can do in working with high key. In a lot of cases you can turn a pretty boring image into something really interesting and artistic. So what should you shoot? That's up to you. High Key is typically used a lot in portraits, but if you get out there and experiment you'll find that you can get good results with almost any kind of subject matter. Now get out there and start shooting! Don't hesitate to post any questions.
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