Low Key and High Key Portraiture because, well, cats!

[flamin lib]

Low key portraiture:

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Kitty Kitty is quite old and has cataracts so I cleared up her eyes in post. It's the little things . . .
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High key portraiture:

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Moon Cat has too many catch-lights in his eyes and a bit of a boo boo on his nose.
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Both portraits made on the same bed lit by the same window. Just changed out the blankets in the background and exposure compensation. Minus 1.5 stops for Kitty Kitty and plus 1.5 for Moon Cat. Both have added contrast to compensate for the narrowed tonal range.

Thanks for putting up with me monopolizing the Photography group. I'm distancing, new to my community so know no-one and have a LOT of down time to fill.

[chia]

1. I don't know a thing about photography but I know beautiful portraits of cats when I see them!

Very nice.

[flamin lib]

2. Thank you. The whole point of photography is to appeal to somebody other than another

camera carrier.

[Major Nikon]

3. At the risk of being pedantic, all of these are high key

A low key portrait is one that has a strong lighting contrast on the subject. For all of these the lighting appears to come from the window behind and slightly left of the camera. If the lighting was coming more to the left, it would create a low key portrait provided the fill on the right was 2 stops or more less.

For example, this is a high key portrait. Notice how the lighting comes from above and slightly left, but the shadow under her snout is faint due to fill lighting that is only about one stop under.


Notice the difference in this photo. Here the lighting is being provided by one main strobe high and to the right. Another fill light was used high and to the left, but it is somewhere around 3 stops lower, creating a high contrast from one side to the other.

[flamin lib]

4. Low key is when the tonality is all below the median threshold, high key is with the

tonality all above the median. Dark on dark vs light on light. It has nothing to do with direction or lighting ratio. That definition is not open to discussion.





Any photograph, high key, low key or Ansel Adams zone system, must have some area of paper base white and some area of maximum density to present a pleasing final image. Otherwise the image looks flat (that too is a technical term). Ansel Adams' zone system represented the widest possible representation of tonality. The concept of high key vs low key is how much of the tonal range can be compressed and still present a pleasing presentation. Candice Bergen and Martha Stewart exemplified high key modeling with the "porcelain look" in the '70s. Today we would look at the histogram and have almost all the graph to the right or left as opposed to a a wide plateau.

However, that being said, you say potAto I say potAHto. Let's call the whole thing off . . .

[Major Nikon]

5. Those are examples of low key

Which is notable by high contrast lighting on the subject which is expressed by the lighting ratio.

While you can find all sorts of technical definitions for the terms, the basic technique used is always about the lighting ratio on the subject.

I'm not sure where you got the definition you are using, but in both of your examples the tonality goes outside the tonal range on both the high and low side, which defies your definition.

[flamin lib]

6. Yeah, OK. Read your own cite.

Rochester Institute of Technology, Texas A&M Commerce.

A high key portrait can have a ratio of 1:1.25 as long as there is paper base white and maximum density. The same with low key as long as there is an area of paper base white.

PotAto.

[Major Nikon]

7. I don't know if that source is from my own cite

But the key word there is can. If the photographic paper you are using is very soft, or you are doing some significant post processing, you can achieve low key with a smaller ratio. However, the method is still exactly the same with the subject lighting falling at the extreme ends of the tonal range of the media being used. The vast majority of photographers today are going to do it with lighting ratios around 1:4 or higher because the dynamic range of the vast majority of digital cameras is much higher than soft photo paper.

[alfredo]

8. Thanks for the photos and info on post processing

I forget to use exposure comp, thanks for the reminder.