Misnomer: High Key, Low Key Lighting

<p>Hi Ethan,<br /> I feel your pain, I have two of my own pet peeves about lighting terms here on the World Wide Web. At the risk of being off topic and verbose, here’s my spiel:</p>

<p>Back in the days before the Internet, photographers were divided into schools defined by where you graduated, what you shot, or who you trained under. The terms you used were specific to a rather small group of photographers. The Internet has changed all that and I can't think of any other art form that's been so impacted.</p>

<p>Overall, we have to acknowledge that terminology follows function, so if "key to fill" is how you look at lighting, so be it. You can find those who will agree with you, just not perhaps within four clicks of this web site.</p>

<p>My own first peeve has to do with what I used to call a "kick" or "kicker" light. To me, that always meant an additional fill light placed near the lens that would 'kick' some fill light into the subject. (Primary fill lights near the lens were considered too simplistic and 'de classe".) It's very useful in shooting long series of catalog clothing where you might have very varied tones but want to maintain a consistent contrast. I was shocked to find out that the more commonly used term for it was that of a simple Rim Light.</p>

<p>Personally, I haven't used the term high / low key since my black and white darkroom days. I'm much more interested in Overall and Local Contrast. Overall being the range of highlight to shadow over the entire image: subject and setting; and Local being the range of the subject alone. I approach any lighting this way and couldn't care less about high or low key. If my subject is light on white, then it's one thing, and if it's dark on dark, it's another. In more words, it's the last thing I consider. I do notice however that many people miss the boat on these white on white shots by missing deep shadow outlines. Perhaps here is where your terms have the most usefulness.</p>

<p>My second pet peeve is the notion that placing a light closer to the subject decreases contrast. I believe that the opposite is true. At least for me, working with multiple lights on medium size sets of fairly reflective products, pushing a light forward always increases Overall and Local contrast. I live by it every day. If I want to flatten the lighting on a set I pull my lights back to light more overall. If I want more dramatics I push my lights in so they light more locally and specularly.</p>

<p>Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. haha But I hear what you're saying. Good luck!</p>

<p>J.<br /> ------------------<br /> Ok, it’s been a day since I wrote the post above, I had to find a computer that wouldn’t block me. Since then I’ve had some further thoughts on the subject and a story.</p>

<p>Back in the last century I worked as a freelance commercial photographer at various studios. At this one place I and a few other photographers were shooting catalog for an international company, OK, I can say, Corning Ware. The shots were of their trademark white casseroles propped with various foods on oak toned table tops. White on light.</p>

<p>Most of the photographers were opting for soft lighting; scrims and softboxes, but I was using a hard pan lights. The studio manager was walking around looking at everybody’s monitors and after looking all around he walked over, turned the music off and announced, “STOP! Everybody look at how John is lighting his set. I want everyone to light that way.”</p>

<p>I was so proud of myself but of course I made no friends with that.</p>

<p>More recently, when I was asked by a fellow photographer about how to approach a light on white image (or high key, we can say), I recall that I told him that there are two different approaches that will work. First is a soft light wherein you restrain all the range of tones within the middle and stretch the contrast in post processing. The second is to light hard and craft your lighting ratios and positions to reach a range from Specular Highlights to Max Black on your set while maintaining the shape and content of your subject.</p>

<p>The goal of course being as full a range image as possible, keeping in mind that not all images contain max white or black.</p>

<p>So, whatever that’s worth, I just wanted to revel in the memory. Haha I guess it’s six of one, half dozen of another. Whatever works for you.</p>

<p>Thanks for hearing me out and good luck!</p>

<p>J.</p>

<p><em>placing a light closer to the subject decreases contrast</em><br>

In general, as you move a light closer to a subject, the difference in distance between the sides of the subject closer to and further away from the light becomes larger. This increases what John G. is calling local contrast (just as the overall contrast between the subject and background is increased by increasing the distance between these). However, "placing a light closer to the subject decreases contrast" can be true with lights and subjects of moderate size. I often use a softlight with an 18" reflector to photograph small objects, which is quite effective, since the diameter of the light is 4 times or more that of the subject. To get lighting as soft as this with a full-length shot of model, I'd need a huge softbox (or an appropriate number of smaller ones placed edge to edge). </p>

<p>Thanks David,</p>

<p>Hi Everybody, John here again, doing some more contemplatin'....haha.</p>

<p>I think that the links in this thread have shown that the terms Hi and Low Key were in use well before photography, but I'm thinking about how one would associate High Contrast lighting with High Key images and Low Contrast lighting with Low Key.</p>

<p>I already told my story of hard lighting on high key subjects and I have another story and some more thoughts.</p>

<p>First, as always, I think we have to differentiate terms as they apply to the Subject, Lighting, and Image. All terms will refer to something different when used to describe to any one of the three aspects. Think of Soft, Low Key, or High Contrast. I can easily use a Soft Light* on a High Contrast subject to produce a Low Key Image. It's done all the time.</p>

<p>But I also see how a lighting master might associate High Key images with High Contrast Lighting. That's what my first story was about. It's an approach that Ethan apparently encountered in his pre-computer days. His feeling that the terms have been switched was a little awkward and I think we have set him straight, but let me go back to the pre-digital days and relate another story that will support the use of hard lighting in high key images and visa versa.</p>

<p>In the late 80's (Jeeze..) I went to visit a fellow photographer in his studio. He was (is) a well known Still Life photographer, but self taught which made his approaches kind of weird. What he did mostly was to take one or two lights, move them around the set and with multiple pops (with the studio lights off obviously) he would build the lighting up around the subject. Add heavy diffusion filters on some of the pops and you end up with a Light Painting effect before any of those light wands became popular (what was that inventor's name, who started all that with the Harley Davidson calendars?). The images were of something that I had never been seen before.</p>

<p>But aside from all that, he told me something about his approach to lighting that I never forgot. He said that first he evaluates his subjects on the set and decides how high or low contrast they are. If they are high contrast, like a bowl of blue berries on a oak background, he'll compensate with soft lights. Likewise, if the subject/set contrast is low, like white dinner ware on a white table cloth he'll go with hard lights. His purpose was to oppose the lighting to the subject in order to create a full range of tones in the finished image, which at that time meant 4x5 or 8x10 transparency film.</p>

<p>I believe in full range prints. In the digital age today, we forget about how much work we used to do to match the contrast of the image to the printing medium. Remember the Zone System? I cringe when I see images that don't make use of the full potential of the medium (Steichen, I'm talking to you!). I always believed that there was a sweet spot to contrast, a place of optimum depth and dimensionality and I've always strived for that. Computers have made that goal so much more easily attainable. With Photoshop we can extend not only the end ranges of the image but even smaller sections if we want to.</p>

<p>It's a whole new age and sometimes we forget what it was like. When I was learning photography I remember thinking that there was no book that could teach me all this. Now you can watch videos of the whole process. We were isolated within our specific trains of thought. The terms we use can vary a lot, especially amongst us older guys. I thank the Internet for getting us all on the same page, more or less, but the proof is still in the image. If your terminology and approach work for you, over and over again, then it's all good. Again, the proof is in the image, because implicit in the Original Post was that he still believes that High Ratio Lighting is good for High Key Images and visa versa, and if I haven't made it clear, I'm not inclined to disagree.</p>

<p>Thanks for your time and interest.</p>

<p>J.</p>

<p>* I know that the OP Ethan was specifically talking about Lighting Ratios while I'm using the terms Hard and Soft Light (singular) because I think that for the sake of this discussion the principles carry through from a single main light to the ratios as well. Hard Lights usually produce High Contrast lighting, with their implicit strength, fall off, and directionality; while Soft Lights generally produce Lower Contrast lighting with their larger coverage, longer falloff, and softer edge shadowing.</p>

<p><em>placing a light closer to the subject decreases contrast</em><br>

When moving the main light closer to the subject without changing the power, the area illuminated, the diffused, receives more intensity than at the further distance. If the ambient or fill remains the same, the contrast between shadow and diffused becomes higher. Re meter for the diffused and the shadow will be darker. We tend to place our main close for a softer shadow edge transfer. We can achieve the contrast ratio we desire by altering the intensity of the main to our original meter reading or increasing fill say by moving it closer or increasing it's power. </p>

<p>A few posters have posted to say that I am confused. I want to address this a bit. I am NOT confused. I know exactly how most peple define the terms, which is opposite to what I was taught. My point is that not I am confused and need to be straighten out. Rather, I just disagree.</p>

<p>I reckon that the word "key" as people use it in this context, refer not to the key light. Instead, it refers to the overall "feel" of the scene. The words "high" and "low" as people use them in this context, refer not to "level" of the light. Rather, they refer to the overall "mood" of the scene -- "high" as in an "upbeat mood" and "low" as in a "down mood". <em><strong>I knew that and I said that exactly in the OP</strong></em> -- that most people use the terms to refer to the mood of the scene.</p>

<p>This is all good. I am <strong>NOT</strong> advocating anyone to change their beloved jargon they have been using. I just think that this maybe an interesting discussion, that's all. In any discipline and trade, there are terms that beg the question, "Why do they call it blah balh, it doesn't make sense." To me the "high key", "low key" terms are one of those terms. You may disagree, but that's cool too.</p>

<p>At the end of the day, in the real world, it really doesn't matter. As long as you are able to achieve the lighting effect you've envisioned and set out to achieve, what difference does it made what it is called, right? :)</p>

<p>Gentlemen......<br>

After reading a few posts on this subject I said "Oh hell!" and Googled it.<br>

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=high+key+in+photography+definition<br>

This reduces it to less verbose terms.</p>

<p>Erwin, I can only refer you to my posting of 12th April:<br>

<em>high key meant predominantly light, low key predominately dark</em><br />Totally agree. The key light to fill light ratio governs contrast. Always has, always will.<br>

I don't really think 15 words counts as verbose :-)</p>