Low Key

What is Low Key Lighting in photography?

Is using light to create strong contrasts between light and dark. You can manipulate the full composite of an image using these shadows and highlights. It is likened to another technique that artists use named Chiaroscuro

My low key light set up was as displayed in my image below

This was the outcome of my lighting studio setup:

The camera I used here was a Canon EOS 1100d and it had a standard 18-55mm lens. I was  wide open at 55mm and on a manual setting of 

ISO 100, APERTURE F/9, SHUTTER SPEED 1/125

I cleaned the image up a touch on photoshop cs5. I added several adjustment layers, 

• colour balance
• levels
• brighten/contrast
• duplicate
• variations
• master opacity(to reduce the brightness of the blue)
• another duplicate layer
• layer order (switched them round to group them)
• master opacity change to the background copy
• Last but not least Merge all visible layers. 
• I also used the patch tool to blend some slight blemishes on the skin surface.

I am very pleased with the outcome. It is exactly what I wanted.

My next challenge is to create a lighter low key style image like the one below taken by the the famous RANKIN