LOW KEY NEWMAN, HANSEN, COLLINS, PHILLIPS, LEE, THOUGHTS ON LOW KEY PORTRAITURE

What goes around come around! For quite a few years we have seen a preponderance of stylish high key, dreamy images and have indeed published a couple of articles on the subject ourselves. Low key seems to be on the way back at the moment and so it is timely to look at the technique and its methods.

What is Low Key?

Quite simply put, low key is a description of an image, which contains a higher proportion of dark tones than light tones. Take this issue's cover image. If you open the original image in Photoshop and look at the histogram of the luminance channel you see that the average RGB value RGB is just 46 points. Using the colour range to select just the highlights confirms that these light tone occupy just 1% of the pixels. However, what an important 1% they are, containing the entire facial details, the hands and defining the folds of the satin dress!

Old Masters

The painting of the Old Master such as Rembrandt were often made in low key.T here are a number of reasons for this, but one was to overcome the limitations of pigments available at the time. In order to make the face of the subject bright and glowing one dodge is to surround it by darker colours so that they eye is fooled. Perhaps the archetypal examples of this are the painting of the Christ child in the manager, glowing out of the cot as if lit by a snooted Bowens! What the artist are doing here is shaping the passage of the viewer's eye towards the important part of their picture.There is a lesson here for the low-key photographer. You can have you subject's face slightly darker and more saturated if you are going to surround it by a dark background .The eye will then bring up the value - an effect known as simultaneous contrast.

This is one reason why we asked Terry Hansen to look at light meters for this compilation article. Getting controlled lighting is the key to achieving the correct fell to the image. Light meters have got a little left behind in these digital days but for setting up and balancing lights they are indispensable.

How dark can you go? Low Key

Especially if you are outputting to inkjet, you need to know how dark your tones are going to reproduce. A slight disadvantage of fully colour managed and profiled workflows are that the shadows below 30 RGB points are sometimes blocked up by the profile. If you find the deepest shadow on your image and then click your shadow dropper on this you will force that shadow area all the way down 0 RGB points and possibly take detail away form the surrounding areas. Providing you know just where shadow blocking is gong to occur you can set your default low RGB value higher or tweak your tone curve to accommodate your profile characteristics. We showed you how to correct this I our feature on colour control last year but in a nutshell you lift the darkest tones in which you require detail above the point at which they block out. To find this point you make a graduated grey scale using the gradient tool then posterise it into about 30 steps and print it. Then you look at where you can no longer differentiate the black tones and go back to your computer and measure the RGB values using your dropper and the Info Palette. If you find that that point is 40RGB points then you now know that all values below that will print as featureless black.

If you are looking for more sophistication, you can overlay numbers on your target and see if you can read them in your proposed viewing or display conditions. see image). As we illustrated in the feature on varnishes in paper Chase this issue, applying a varnish bring out shadow detail in a spectacular way and your tests should include the application of a varnish if that is what you propose to do. Expect to get at least another stop of tone at the dark end of the scale.

Note: In general the use of the Look Up Tables (LUT) when printing on an Epson printer is less likely to block up your shadows. You get this when using the "Automatic" setting without bespoke colour profiles. It may work better for you so at least give it a try.

Setting up Your Lights

For some reason, today's textbooks tend to fight shy of writing about lighting and lighting ratios - typical of today's dumbing down! Make no mistake, a practical or practical and theoretical knowledge of lighting set ups can take you a long way. There are a number of fundamentals that you should understand about lights.

Inverse Square Law

The amount of light reaching a subject falls off as the subject is moved away form the light. If the distance is doubled, the light falls off by four times (i.e. 2 stops). This holds true for brollies, soft boxes and other diffused light sources. Very directional lighting such as that from the sun or a projector does not fall off. This is because the light rays are parallel to each other. For the case of the sun it is because it is so far away, for the projector it is because the lens optics make it behave as though it is far away.

Size of the light source

Pinpoint light sources such as the sun or a small flash head are tiny relative to the objects they usually light up. It is all about relative size. To a bee shot in macro, a bare camera flash head is about the same size as a brolly to a human being. The lighting effect is thus the same. On an overcast day the sunlight is spread over the entire sky and is effectively the biggest brolly you can buy! If you place a large soft box very close to a subject the light wraps around them. This is referred to as the depth of the lighting. The effect is explained in the separate diagram. The effect is to increase the modelling and shape of the face.

Low key Low Key

15 inch working distance is 2:1 along the depth of the face whereas if the working distance of the lamp is moved out to 8 feet the ratio moves to 1.1:1 that is a barely detectable change.

Incident Angle of the Light Source

The amount of light reflected back from a face (i.e. how bright it is to be rendered in the image) also depends upon the angle it presents to the light and the camera. As the light moves round from the subject's cheeks towards their ears, the light fall off gets to be quite rapid, a full stop over 10° between 45° and 60° and a full three stops between 45° and 80°.

On Meters Tery Hansen

Hands up all those photographers who have dispensed with their hand held meters now that they are shooting digitally. As Chairman of Qualifications I am often seeing problems associated with poor metering. As we moved to digital photography it was often said that exposure was as critical as shooting transparency, it isn't, it's more critical. Many photographers seem to think that with auto metering on their camera all they have to do is point and squirt. Far from it, through the lens meters are easily fooled and you need to engage brain before pressing the shutter. Shooting against the light for instance often fools the camera; also, try photographing a groom and best man in morning suits against a dark doorway. You will soon realise your exposures are not very accurate. Another thing to bear in mind is that the majority of the cameras in popular use at this time Fuji S2 etc. are digital cameras built on cheap 35mm film camera bodies, costing around £400. This makes for an affordable camera, but means that metering, auto focus etc. are not as accurate or as positive as we would like. Another important reason for using hand-held meters is when working in the studio (or location) using studio or external flashes. You need to be able to meter both ambient light and flash light. Also when using multiple light set-ups you need to know the ratio of the lighting. Yes, you can establish correct overall exposure using the histogram on the camera, but the image on the screen is too poor to correctly assess the ratio of your lights. How contrasty will the images be? How dark are the shadows? If shooting a large group, is the lighting even across the picture? Questions that can only be answered by the use of external meters.

I have recently been testing three meters kindly supplied by Johnson Photopia. The Sekonic Flash Master L358 which despite its name measures ambient and flash exposure and costs £224.99 plus VAT. The Dualmaster L558 at £399.99 plus VAT which adds the ability to take spot readings. The ultimate meter supplied, the Super Zoom Master L608 costs £449.00 plus VAT. All three meters were incredibly accurate and consistent, if you are serious about your photography you really need to invest in a quality meter.

Low Key Putting it all together.

People who light subjects well by simply looking at the scene are skilled and subtle observers of light. Lesser mortals may care to set up using a hand held meter and a bit of experimentation (always carried out before your sitter arrives by the way!). The basic rules are as follows (although other may use different approaches).

1. Measure on light at a time with other turned off and proceed logically. Work out your light strength in stops.

2. Use an integrated light meter and point it at the light, from the subject position. If you have a very close main light remember that the thickness of the meter may be a significant proportion of the working distance. Some meters are quite flat, the Gossen Mastersix for example is about 6", a significant portion of a 15" working distance. Also make sure that you do not block any light out with your body as you stand into the scene.

3. Consider both the strength of the light and the tone of your backdrop. An under lit white backdrop can be made to look dark grey and conversely a massively lit black background can be quite light. Consider just what tone that you wish the backdrop to be reproduced and also any Vignetting you desire (see call out box on Vignetting).

4. Base your camera aperture on a reading taken with all light firing. Also consider how much shutter drag you are going to allow. The aperture controls the amount of flash reaching the film/detector, the shutter speed determine how much effect that the ambient light is going to have ( if any some prefer windowless studios!).

5. Once you have got it all together, make notes so that you can repeat what you have done - if it turns out much to your liking you will want to know. Old hands of course will know from experience! The diagram below is an example of hoe to record the information. Make up copies of a blank sheet and fill tem in as you go - it can be time consuming but will save time as you learn your lights.

Vignetting Low Key

Vignetting has long been associated with the photographic image and was impossible to control with any degree of precision wit the simple optics initially available for photography. However it was the painters who started Vignetting in order to bring dominance to the faces of their sitters by surrounding them with darker tones. In low-key images Vignetting is usually a key element achieved by one or a combination of three methods each of which has a different effect,

Control the light

This further sub-divides. You can vignette the background lighting (shape of the pool of light not its strength). You can illuminate the backdrop evenly but have a vignette painted onto it. You can shape the light on the subject and cause it to fall off around the edges. Finally you can make combinations of some or all of these effects.

In camera

You can attach a gizmo to your lens. Many have been produced by equipment suppliers and by the photographers themselves. Black stocking have figured (both in front of and on the lens), chopped up and stretched across lens hoods, graduated density filters have been produced. All of these devices have the common feature of affecting the entire scene, that is the darkening encroaches on the sitter's head, feet, arms and shoulders. While superb images have been produced with these lens devices we all sometimes find ourselves wishing that the vignette was a little fatter, more elongated, squarer etc.

In Photoshop

This topic was covered in a previous issue of professional Imagemaker. In essence you make an adjustment layer over the whole image and use the adjoining, default mask to control where the darkening takes place. This can be shaped to include only those bits of the image that you wish to darken and Gaussian blurring the mask controls the boundaries where the Vignetting meets the subject. This method is second best to controlling the scene lighting but can also be used to modify it.

The Props Low Key

The props for any studio session are vital. Effectively, what you are trying to do is recreate the best location you have found on your travels, indoors, in your studio, with full lighting control as a bonus. Whilst you can purchase props from a number of the excellent companies that deal in these products, you could also keep your eyes open at the local auction houses and clearance sales. You can pick up an old Chippendale and a couple of old oil paintings for a song and chuck them if you get bored! At the recent Dave Newman seminar we had a bit of discussion about your props and backgrounds getting stale with over usage. Dave had two takes on this as he has had clients asking why the fourth child was photographed against a new back drop when they wanted all the pictures to be the same- you can't win! Tom Lee has hit on the idea of creating a backdrop on his Epson 7600 and gluing the pieces together. That way you can ring the changes faster and it look as if it will be relatively inexpensive - we will keep you posted! For period low-key, flowers are pretty vital and providing you are going to have them out of focus you can make do with silk blooms rather than fresh. You can expect to pay about £2 for a rose and up to £40 for a small bush or tree. You could do worse than popping along to your local community college who are almost certain to have flower arranging classes, and get some help in setting them out. Your other option is to do a deal with the local florist and provide them with a nice framed canvas as quid pro quo - that way you get free advertising as well!

Broken down arches, dry stone walls and the like are a little trickier and you are going to have to pay out for those. A set of girders is going to set you back a few thousand pounds. For iron gates you might be best having a chat with your local blacksmith. Swings (that work) require good engineering if you are to avoid injury claims so thing hard about safety before you expose your sitters.

By way of example we reproduce Tom Lee’s image of Patrick, below left. The backdrop is a hand painted one from Photo Friend. Tom’s lighting diagram is shown below. The final image was produced off the Ilford Studio system onto Ilford Studio canvas and then given two coats of DCP Giclée varnish.

Dave Newman Lighting

DAVE NEWMAN - lighting ratio

The Newman Baloney Principle At his recent UK seminars, Dave Newman used the following metaphor to illuminate lighting ratios. We have anglicised it and hope it will be as clear as his presentation!

Imagine that when a flash gun goes off it fires a slice of baloney at the sitter. Here is the first Anglicisation, for baloney read Spam - Spam as off the deli counter at Sainsbury's , not from Internet Explorer. This slice lands on the sitter's face and provides 1-stop of light upon the side of the face that it lands on. Imagine that this is the main light and the slice is worth f8 of light. Now you fire a slice of Spam from the fill light. This light is wider and place towards the shadow side of the face. The slice of Spam lands on the sitter's face but covers both the cheeks on the shadow and lit sides of the face. Now our unfortunate model has a double thickness of Spam on the main light side and a single thickness on the shadow side. The lighting ratio is thus 2:1 (two slices on one side and one slice on the other). Dave neman Lighting

Imagining stops of light in this way makes it easier to understand. If you now imagine that you make the main light one stop stronger it will fire 2 slices of Spam while the fill light will remain at one slice. Thus the ratio is 3:1 as the main side gets 2+1 slices and the shadow side gets 1 slice. If the main light is strengthened by a further stop it now fires 4 slices and the ratio becomes 5 to 1 (4+1 to 1).

The ratio that you choose is a matter of choice and experience. For low key applications a ratio of 5:1 is a starting point but it can get even higher. For outdoor fill-in flash 2:1 will look “over flashed” and a ratio of at least 5:1 is considered normal (i.e. the flash 2 stops down on the aperture set for the ambient light).

For atmospheric room photography the balance can go even higher - again it depends upon the effect you are trying to produce. In his excellent book "The Manual of Interior Photography", Michael Harris discusses the effect of lighting balance in detail. Whilst it has to be recognised that this is not specifically portraiture, the methods have things to teach us. If you are trying to photograph somebody in their home then you may wish to balance up their environment with care. Harris starts his exposures with the fill flash power at 1/4 (i.e. 2 stops) of the dominant light source (usually the exterior window lighting). He will then shoot a bracket sequence of 9-shots. If you are trying to balance the desire for perfect interior lighting and portrait lighting, within the room, you are going to have to spend more time on set-up and testing. You are also faced with the vexed question of whether to have the interior lights on or off. While some lifestyle magazines like them off (to pretend it is sunny outside) they can add a feeling of warmth to a portrait.

Collins Alexandra Collins - Triana

Alexandra's work is featured elsewhere in this issue but we got her to sketch her lighting arrangement for her lovely bridal portrait below.The image embodies much of what we are discussing in this feature, with gorgeous lighting on a very beautiful sitter, creating a truly magical portrait. Note the depth of the light on the shadow side of the model's face. As we have the original digital file we are able to tell you that the lightness value on the cheek graduates back from 50% to 20% in a perfectly smooth transition. It is this lighting control that gives the image much of its quality.

Norman Phillips

My first venture into creating images was as a child when I used lead pencils. Using the full range of leads from HB through 7B, I was at a young age, able to create images that had an almost 3D appearance. Whether it was sheer talent or skilled observance I cannot be sure, but those drawings drew highly complementary reactions from all that viewed them. But there is no doubt that I developed a skill of seeing light early and translated it with my pencils.

All those drawings were done on white parchment paper and in fact were a reverse of what is, while not exclusively, now my medium of choice; low-key portrait photography. Those who have read my Lighting Techniques for High Key Portrait Photography will know that I am forever seeking ways to create images that have emotion, delicacy, charm and texture. In low key the techniques have many similarities but also have many different nuances that cannot be done in high key.

In high key our images have less potential drama and panache, though nonetheless just as beautiful. For instance, when creating a portrait that has powerful texture they almost look too much larger than life, but when we work in low key, using similar lighting styles we are able to create a feeling of depth by using light from angles that high key will not allow.

The old masters such as, Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Ruebens and Homer worked mostly in relatively low light situations with backgrounds that were less bright than our modern life situations. Consequently their work is much more low key than any other and their influence persists to this day. If we study their work and learn to observe the effects of light our portraits will be works of art and not just mundane camera images. The most interesting aspect of this is that despite low key being a more natural choice for most portrait photographers the use of lighting techniques is less imaginative and sometimes less than as skillful than it might be.

If you will study the works of the old masters you will note how they looked into the shadows for the critical detail that makes their portraits so exciting. I grant you that the old masters had a certain advantage; they could take their time and do makeovers if they felt the need. Yet modern photographers too frequently fail to look into the shadows for the detail in the same way that would make theirs so much more vital and lifelike. For many there is a set formula that prevents them from creating great images. That formula is one that dictates lights will always be in a virtual lock down and there is almost an identical light pattern on every subject they photograph. You could say that what they are producing is boring because almost everyone looks the same except they have different features. Subjects are not treated individually. Every one gets virtually the same treatment. The photographer is not practicing his craft to the ultimate degree. And to compound the problem props and backgrounds are often inappropriate or misused.

Oddly enough there are some who seek to create different images to the common renderings and they misuse the lights and instead of great images create almost bizarre light patterns that can make their subjects look less than attractive and draw your attention the lighting instead of the subject. Exciting lighting but not very good portraiture.

I would like to suggest that every portrait photographer should own a copy of Winslow Homer's "The Country School" and spend some time studying how this master observed all the nuances of the light from three windows. This masterpiece is a wonderful lesson in how to see light. The painting is primarily low key and demonstrates how we can create a wonderful feeling of depth when backgrounds provide the opportunity to wrap light around our subjects, something almost impossible to do in high key.

Two images that demonstrate this are those of the boy reading a book by window light primarily from the left of the camera and that of the boy reading by candlelight. Each of these images demonstrates a different technique. The technique where daylight was used shows how we can use natural light without the being able to reposition it and instead we have to adjust our subject to the light source.

In this image the couch the boy is seated in presents a low key background and consequently the effect of the light is much more dramatic and there is a great feeling of depth. Note how the boy has been slightly angled so that the light from the window at the left strikes his book and reflects up into his face. The window behind and to his left, (right of the camera), creates a slight separation and gives you a look into the shadows.

The boy reading by candlelight presents a totally different challenge. It immediately required me to recognize what candlelight is and does. First I lit the candle and observed its effect on the boy's face. If my lighting was to create the impression that the portrait was by only candlelight then my lighting pattern had to be very precise.

Candlelight does not wrap like soft light. It is primarily specula and creates deep shadows where the facial structure is not in the direct line of the light it emits. Yet, when we are left with only candlelight, given a little time we will look into the shadows for a little detail. This effect was accomplished by using a slightly diffused snoot as the main light, which was placed slightly behind the plane of the boy's Norman Phillips profile and behind the candle. This position mocked the effect of the light from the candle. Next a soft white umbrella was placed directly in front of the boy but behind the candle and produced just enough light to render some skin tone to the camera side of the face.

Both of these portraits have earned recognition in competition, each earning Best of Show ribbons. I like to think that this because I have learned my craft and gleaned the rewards for my dedication to the study and understanding of low key lighting. Wholly apart from the ribbons and the kudos both images provide me with great satisfaction. It is what low key does for my emotional reactions. It excites my senses in a way that even my best high key work does not.

The low key portraits such as illustrates this article are always going to create the wow factor. Creating the wow factor in our images is important if we want our potential clientele to want our portraiture. If you create the mundane and the common style of low key work you are not going to draw the client who has the ability to spend good money. My own success in drawing the upscale client is all about the ability to create images that are exciting and stir the emotions. It is about creating desire that grows into want. When clients compare the work of other photographers in my market they will always see the difference. Great lighting will make your portraits talk to their viewers.

Don't just shoot in low key, shoot with great lighting and see your market grow. And your bottom line

The SWPP 2008 Convention was an outstanding success,
we have 191 days to get ready for the 2009 convention - which starts on January 14, 2009

Photo Quote: We are only beginning to learn what to say in a photograph. The world we live in is a succession of fleeting moments, any one of which might say something significant. - Alfred Eisenstaedt