jonathan brewer

<p>I no longer participate on the Photonet forum, but since it's been since this is an old thread and your reply appeared in 2009, I feel like I should comment and then I'm going to fade out. <br>

Neither you or the folks who're behind the definition of high key which you've presented here have a fundamental understanding of high key. <br>

The use of high key does NOT mean that you can only have ONE RESULT which some folks seem to think MUST be that everything must look from almost and/or to completely white. When you use overexposure/more illumination to shine your light on something than what you meter indicates to get some kind of effect, you are using high key.<br>

The results from using higher illumination from your key than what your meter indicates runs the whole gamut from pouring in just a little extra illumination to achieve some 'sparkle' and 'pizazz' to using a great deal to 'wash out' everything so that everything looks white.<br>

As to the 'My Family' image, look again.............the skintones of my son and daughter are nowhere near midtone or darker, that was on purpose, because I poured in a tremendous amout of overexposure in addition to using a red 25 to represent their skintones as different than what they would appear to the naked eye. In 'real life' their skintones are medium to dark brown and not as you see them in this images.<br>

Rennae, the mother is dark as the 'ace of spades' and not as you see here in this image, that was purpose, my using a tremendous amount of illumination over and above what my meter indicated to 'boost' up her skintone to present more detail.<br>

To give you an idea of just how much 'overexposure' I used, the background I used in this image is BLACK!!!!..........I repeat.........BLACK. In the image it's represented as lighter than black, which is why I used it, because I knew I would be using high key on this shot.<br>

If I had substituted folks w/caucasian skin wearing white clothes into this image along w/a white background it would've looked like they were in HEAVEN because I used so much overexposure. The point of high key is not one 'look' only, it's pouring a little extra light for a little extra 'sparkle', AND it's Also pouring in a great deal of illumination to convert tones to light grey or almost white, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN. <br>

Said in another way, you can utilize high key by using varying degrees of everexposure in order to get some result, and no matter whether it's a little or a lot, you are still using high key. Remember.............it's the use of high key for ANY NUMBER of results that makes it high key and not only the one result or 'look'.</p>

<p>Good luck</p>

Hi Jack

 

Thank you for those very kind words. Yes, my beef is w/someone else, I don't know how you got a note, so forgive me for that.

 

Take care and good luck

Jonathan

Unless you respond, I'll say this..............I've mentored young photographers, and I'm not being presumptious when I say that, I'm not out to prove anything, it's simply out of a wish to share what I know. Someone told me, and showed me, and I'll pass that along.

 

I tood the time to upload an image and go into exactly why I did what I did, to share with folks who can use what I know, but the bottom line is that they can use it, not use it, or ignore it.

 

I've had my website written up by Joe Farace in his 'Great Photosites revisited' articles for Shutterbug magazine, and I've written articles for RangeFinder magazine and www.alternativephotography.com and I mention this in the spirit of suggesting that I'm at least far enough along in this as you and know how a master teacher, teacher, instructor, or a mentor or whatever you call yourself should go about a critigue.

 

And it isn't the way you did it, which was rude and obnoxious, and when you do it to one of my shots, I'm going to call you on it.

 

I'll share what I know with anybody, which is why I took the time to upload the original image, explain the thoughts about my decisions in making the image, and in that same spirit, I'll demand that you critique my image w/specifics and or contructive criticism which should be the way you teach your students or just don't bother to respond to my posts..

Here's a shot I did w/Infrared film, I was tired of shooting portraits the same way, a sitter in front of a background, so I decided to shoot both infrared and then blend the background into the face. Hopefully you'll upload some of work that you think is representative, and that way you just don't tell me, you show me.<div></div>

For some reason the system wouldn't let me add another image, I'll try again<div></div>

I'll keep 'em coming

Here's another<div></div>

Let's talk about specifics, and to do that, I'll upload some of my work, hopefully you'll respond in kind,

then everyone can get a load of what both you and me are about. Hopefully you'll upload some of what you feel

you can talk about and we can all talk about the photographs together, but you have to do it w/specifics.

 

I'll start<div></div>

What do your mean by bizarre, I've read you bio which suggests you're a master teacher, so if you can't

give specifics then what the hell are you talking about?

 

Despite how bizarre you find the image, and how much you hope your results differ, I was hired by Dorothy

to give her what she wanted, and I gave her that. She has a '36"x48" version of this image hanging on her wall

that she shows to everybody, and she ordered quite a bit of extra prints than she originally asked for, running

just barely into the xxxx figures.

 

I was hired to please her not you. My personal website's at www.imageandartifact.bz for anyone to feel

free to peruse, in any question or comparison of portraiture work, mine in relation to your work, because I've

just looked at some of your shots and I don't think you have the skill level to trash one of my shots.

 

If you are/were a Master Teacher I would've expected a reasoned critique of the shot along with advice on

how you would do it right, as opposed to resorting to terms that tell nothing/say nothing like 'disturbing' and

'bizarre'. If you are a Master Teacher as opposed to someone just 'posturing' like one, give me what a teacher

would give without having to be asked, specifics when you post opinions on my shots, and then I respond

w/specifics.

...snip...

snip.....

If I disagree w/you, I'm going to say so, and try my best to explain why, we both engage in a dialogue so that the folks reading this, particularly the ones starting out can get both sides, and they can decide for themselves what they can use/what makes sense/gives them hopefully some inspiration to engage in a technique new to them,.................

snip.....

'I wanted to make sure Justin understood that diffuse and soften are two different things, since he asked about the Lightsphere and OmniBounce, particularly outdoors.'....................On this I will certainly agree.

'When filling in bright sunlight, direct flash with no modifier is often fine, as the light is already contrasty and harder.'..................................Nadine, this is totally incorrect, how can anything be 'contrasty and harder' in a shadow? Sunlight can certainly produce a great deal of contrast and harshness where it's illuminating the subject, but not where it leaves a shadow?

'I should also add that outside, these modifiers don't soften light. To really soften light, you need to make the light source large--theoretically, at least as large as the distance between you (the flash) and your subject--that's why bouncing light off ceilings and walls softens light. If you understand this, you understand why small softboxes for on-camera flash and the like don't really soften the light much.'........................................................Nobody has suggested that, I suggested using diffusion, I said nothing about what's going to 'soften light', what modifier Justin or anyone else decides to use, will certainly depend on what works, and you need to do some tests to determine that.

 

This.............................'To really soften light, you need to make the light source large--theoretically, at least as large as the distance between you (the flash) and your subject--that's why bouncing light off ceilings and walls softens light.'......................isn't what gives you the illusion of softness, photographing something with a softbox whose diameter is the same width as the distance from your subject and it can still look harsh, the softness issue also involves the very light ratios we're discussing now(a lot of fill tends to give the illusion of a softer pallette), diffusion over the lens, soft focus lenses, and so forth.

 

And using everything I've mentioned above w/a beauty dish can produce a soft but smooth look.

 

It's distance, it can be diffusion over the lens, the amount of your fill, make-up,......it's a combination of all these if you're talking about the illusion of softness.................whip out a 36x48 softbox, place it within 3-4 of a sitter, take the shot w/just the softbox illuminating the sitter, it won't look anywhere near as soft as the very same shot photographed with a fair amount of fill, the soft look is a combination of things.

 

Again, read all this, and then do your own tests, if a suggestion works, use it, and just ignore the rest.

Nobody is arguing, I completely understand your point of view, I simply disagree w/it, and your references to what the shooters did in the 'olden' days, because I was there, and they didn't do what you suggested.

 

I commenting on what Justin asked in his original question, this is one of the things he was asking about.......................

..................................'My question here is (and I've gotten different answers from teachers and my boss) do I set the camera to expose for the key light (say f16 in bright sun) or the fill flash (f11)? Is this a situation where the answer depends on what I'm trying to achieve? Is there situations where I would want to expose for the main instead of the fill, or vice versa?'........................

...............................and I thought that question was important enough for Justin and all the folks auditing this thread who are trying to understand fill flash/lighting ratios, that I went into it like I did, I believe you to be incorrect in what you told him, I don't aim to ruffle any feathers, but it doesn't make any difference what a teacher suggests you do, if the suggestion doesn't invole the most important issue of why, it makes no sense to me to overexpose the shadows at the expense of possibly washing out your highlights, when you can expose/nail the highlights and bring up your shadows for detail/w fill flash.

 

I would suggest to Justin and anyone out there reading these posts to do your own tests/experiments and see for yourself what works, and it'll become apparent to you what makes sense.

A one stop difference isn't 'nothing', it's twice or 50% the next stop,...........I've shot since the late sixties, I've shot every kind of negative film including the old color negative film 5254, which I got from 'short ends' that I hand loaded.

 

I shot during the 'olden days', and I shot w/the older negative films you're discussing, so I can tell you because I was there, that I know of nobody who use to do this or suggest this.................................'Many wedding and event photographers used to expose for the shadows (or fill flash), sometimes deliberately overexposing by a stop or more--sometimes 2 stops in the "olden days".........................................this is like suggesting that a man wear suspenders and a belt at the same time, because the whole reason for fill flash or lighting ratios(which are the same thing), is to boost up the illumination in the shadows for more detail relative to your highlights. You've already got good detail when you use 'fill flash', that's its whole purpose, to bring the illumination of the shadows closer to your highlights. There's no reason to overexpose the shadows for more detail, when using fill flash has already accomplished that for you in the shot.

 

There is a concept in photography used by landscape photographers among others, where they may be shooting something so huge and so far away(like the grand canyon), where it would be impossible for them to even consider fill flash, where they may have to deal with a bigger difference between the highlights and shadows, and no way to illuminate the shadows to bring them closer to the highlights, and in that case, they would expose for the shadows, and develop for the highlights.

 

If you're shooting subject matter close enough, with strobes powerful enough, or with reflectors, you don't have to resort to overexposing the shadows to get detail, and developing for the highlights, because you're achieving the increased detail w/your fill flash OR your reflector, but the one thing you wouldn't do in terms of using either of these techniques is to use BOTH, one on top of the other, THEY BOTH DO THE SAME THING.

'If using film, you could expose for the shadow side because when using negative film, going to the overexposure side is safer and is sometimes done just to ensure good density on the film. If using slide film or digital, you would go to the underexposure side (shoot at the highlight value) to avoid blowing highlights. The answer does not depend on what you're trying to achieve in lighting.'...................

.................Everything you do in terms of exposure depends on what you're trying to achieve in lighting. A bias toward the shadows w/negative film makes sense if the majority of your shot is in shadow, if the majority of your shot doesn't happen to be in shadow, doing this will result in the highlights looking 'washed out', a less natural look to me than exposing for the highlights and letting the shadows fall into place as shadows.

 

Negative film can handle overexposure, but I would suggest to you that this fact should not be the m.o. for picking an exposure as opposed to what 'looks right', now there's a difference between degrees of overexposure to add some 'pop'/'sparkle' and a mistake that results in a shot looking garish and 'washed out'. If the Sun is giving you F16, and you flash is giving you F11, I would expose for the highlights w/both transparency and negative film, for the most 'natural look', that is, the highlights don't look washed out, and the shadows look darker than the highlights.

 

The above is one of the rationales behind 'fill flash' which is the exact same thing as 'lighting ratios', they may have different names, but they are one and the same thing.

I'll defer to the people who use TTL, to answer that part of your question, and I'll just speak to the last part of your thread.

 

If the idea is that you want a natural and seamless shot using fill flash where it's hard for anyone but another shooter to spot you flash, then you want the sun as your key, and you use your flash as a 'fill' light to add shadow detail,.......a reading on your highlights illuminated by the Sun of F16, w/your flash illuminating the shadows to the tune of F11, and you exposing @F16, means that your shadows are a stop under your highlights, and still look like shadows relative to the rest of the scene(using a little diffusion if possible further disguises your use of fill flash in the above scenario).

 

You can reverse this technique on a very overcast day, where taking shots under these conditions tends to turn everything 'muddy'/'flat', that is you can use your stobe to boost up your foreground sujbect matter for some 'sparkle', ..............say you take an ambient reading and get F4, you use your flash(w/some diffusion), to 'boost' up the exposure on someone standing in the foreground, and again, depending on your technique, it will tend to look seamless except to other shooters.

 

Of course you need some way of diffusing your flash, some warm gels/the warm side of your reflector, for different times of the day, and I always keep reminding myself when doing 'fillflash' that using flash illumination to fill in the shadows shouldn't create another set of shadows in the shadows, that's un-natural.

This subjects skin is as pale as they come, the background is bright, is it 'high key'? Of course it is, the illumination of my keylight was way above the indicated meter reading I was getting in front of Richard, if I ask Richard to step out of the shot, and replace him w/a dark skinned subject and a black background and I use the exact same illumination on the foreground, am I still using 'high key'?

 

OF COURSE.<div></div>

You can play around w/your wardrobe, your background, you can use a white background or a black one, or anything in between, and if you use 'high key' illumination of the foreground subject matter, it's a shot involving the use of 'high key' period.

 

Here's a semi-silhouette, foreground illumination is extremely low, there's NO LIGHT on the background, can you tell me what the original tone of the background was? Before you guess, I can tell you that the original tone of the background didn't have ANYTHING to do w/final look of the shot.

 

This shot is low key, or more to the point almost no key.<div></div>

"The term ?key? refers to the tone of the final image. The elements of the image that influence the tone are the color of the background, the color of clothing used, and the color of any props or foreground elements. Images that have a consistent key have much more of an impact that those whose elements are not consistent.

 

Low key images are created using a dark background and dark clothing and props. You can identify the key of an image by determining the average tone for the scene."...........................With all due respect to you, that's 100% wrong..............................The term 'key' in 'high key' refers to the illumination your keylight,........buy a book on Cinematography and look up the term 'keylight', and then the term 'highkey', and it will say what I'm saying, that one term('highkey') is a reference to the intensity of the illumination of the other term('keylight'), it's the same principle in still photography.

 

High key refers to the intensity of the light you're shining on the foreground sujbect matter,............it's the light you shine on something that determines its tonality,.....................light a candle in the middle a large gymnasium painted w/white walls, and you end up with a BLACK ROOM,............increase the amount of light in the gym and you get grey walls,...........pile in even more light in the gym and the walls will start to look white.

 

Using 'High key' illumination on a foreground subject, means that the 'high key' illumination of your foreground subject is 'high key' no matter what the background looks like, it doens't make any difference if it's white or black,................how you illuminate the background, whatever color or tone it happens to be, IS DIFFERENT.

 

In portraiture there are terms like 'Key' refering to your 'keylight, and 'high key'(still refering to the keylight) which means the BOOSTING UP the intensity of your keylight. You also have the term 'background light', refering to the light that illuminates your background,.........now in scenario where one light illuminates everything, foreground and background, it's still 'high key'.

 

The problem here is the mindset that a white wall used as a background, somehow determines whether or not you've used 'highkey', it doens't. Here's what you said,............................................'The elements of the image that influence the tone are the color of the background,'.......................How much illumination you shine on the FOREGROUND AND BACKGROUND determine what the tonality will be in the final image.

 

'High key' illumination of a foreground subject, with a white background is ONE VERSION of 'high key', and one version only, you don't have to have a white background to shoot 'high key', you can run the gamut in the color and tone of your background to black,........and if you're using 'high key' illumination on a subject in front of that black background, it's plain and simple 'high key'.

 

The principle of 'high key' has been around in Cinematography/Still Photography for a 100 years or more,..................shoot a foreground subject w/'high key'illumination in front of a white background, then change the background to a black background,...........the images will look different, but you haven't changed the fact that you've used 'high key' on the foreground subject matter. Forget ONE KIND OF LOOK as the principle of high key.

 

Here's my version of a high key shot, I've uploaded this image before and if memory serves me right, it's several stops above my indicated meter reading taken in from of Dayna's face, the background is medium grey, not white, and it's 'high key'<div></div>

In that case, let's hope he/she can grow another head.

When your head starts to hurt, quit reading.

You don't have to be a slave to a light meter, an indicated exposure from a light meter, and the exposure used which gives the subject matter the look you want/where it looks right, are two different things,.........a reasoned manipulation of exposure to achieve some desired effect, is different than a miscalculation that washes everything out, one is a tool that either works or it doesn't, the other is an outright mistake. A mistake as in the result looks 'garish', 'harsh', and tones and colors washed out to the point of fading out of existence.

 

The whole point is did what you try work? I know what works and doesn't work for me, but I see work where everything in the frame looks washed out and instead of simply admitting that, the artist tries to pawn off a blunder as something they had intended in the first place, rationalizing that it is you, unwilling to look at the work w/an open mind, that is the real problem.

 

To me, 'high key' is a high energy 'look', at least that's how I use it/decide when to use it, high key/low key is something you use if it makes your image a lot more fun 2 look at, gives it some more interest, some more sparkle if that's your intent,........to make the image unique, and not muddy, boring, and mundane.

 

Usually this effect is discussed in its extreme, that is folks to tend to discuss extreme high key, when it's so much more than that, piling in some more illumination for some 'pop' is 'high key', not just a girl w/pale skin in front of a white background, exposed to where she looks like she's going to heaven,..........'high key' is essentially a term then, to give you an idea of how your key was/is being used on your foreground subject matter, and it does that/explains that, in a way that the term 'overexpose' can't.

 

You use the term 'overexpose'/'overexposed' regarding an image, it can mean you messed up/made a mistake,.............you can also suggest that you intentionally overexposed to bring out the detail in your subject matter,.........and in doing so, you're trying to improve how your image looks, as opposed to making everything look washed out.

 

The term 'high key' is simply more of a descriptive term than over/underexposure when talking about manipulating your keylight in a certain way, and the term has been used this way in the motion picture industry/still photography for years, it can run the gamut from just over what your meter indicates, to 4-5 stops above a meter reading, in order to achive an effect, change a tone, give the subject matter more 'pop', more sparkle, make the subject matter more dreamlike,.......this all makes sense and these effects have been associated w/the term 'high key' for years,..................................as opposed to the term 'overexpose/'overexposed', which doesn't tell you anything, which is precisely why we're having this discussion.

 

'Overexpose'/'underexpose' indicates just that, more than/less than what's indicated, the terms don't say anything about the reasons/why, ....the term 'high key' has been associated w/everything we discussed above,.....for some sparkle/some 'pop'/high energy/brings out some more detail/it looks better than the indicated.

 

You use 'high key' because it makes the image/a part of the image look better, not worse, and that is the most important difference between 'High key' and 'overexposed'.

I mis-spoke, what I should've said was, 'because of the manipulation of wardrobe and background, the use of extreme 'high key' gave me the effect I wanted, which was to change the look of the skintones of the foreground subject matter'.