High Key Lighting Work Diary

During the lesson on Tuesday the 4th October 2016, our task was to take photos of " high key lighting" within the studio. To do this technique, we had to set up the studio with so the lighting was in the correct place. This technique involved 3 different lights, but if we wanted a more exposed effect, we could have used a 4th one. The way it was set up, was that there was a key light next to the camera, pointing down at our subject, we then had a reflector board placed next to where the subject would stand, this would enhance the amount of light bouncing back on my subject. Then in the background, we used a white back drop, with two of the smaller lights pointing onto the backdrop, this was to make sure the background was more more over exposures than the subject- giving it a "high key lighting" effect. To set up the lighting, we needed to make sure the main key light, had an F.stop of 8 and the background lights had a higher F.stop- in our case it was between 11-12.

This is a rough image taken quickly to show the set up.

My favourite image of this shoot:

This is the edited image and the original. The camera settings on my camera for this photo was ISO 200, F.stop 6.3, Shutter speed 1/125. The recommended F.stop was 8, however I did not like the effect of that as it seemed like a "normal" image, I wanted my image to be more exposed than that, so I experimented and lowered my f.stop, I really prefer the way it turned out with this F.stop because the background it much more white in the image and also my subject is more brighter/ sharper. A reason I like this image is because it shows quite a "fashion" look. Additionally, when researching this technique, I came across many images of models with a hood up- as shown on my image bank, although after taking this image, my teacher pointed out how similar it is to the work of a famous photographer called David Bailey, but as shown in an image below, the are key part which could appear that I have copied this image- which I did not intend to do, however, I still really like this image especially in black and white because I think it works really well and has created a really interesting photo.

David Bailey's photograph of Mick Jagger.

This image is very similar to my work as discussed above, both the subjects have hoods up which I think is really intriguing because it forms a connotation of a story, with the white background, who knows where they are? They could be in the freezing Antarctic with snow all around them.
My least favourite image from this shoot:

The camera settings for this image, is the same as my image above- I kept it the same because I preferred this settings. However this is my least favourite image because of the pose my subject is doing. I took this image by mistake and didn't tell my subject that I was taking it. This has had an impact on this image because my subject in mid-movement. Another reason why this is my least favourite image of this shoot is as I took it quickly, my subject isn't as sharp as this image above which I do not really like. 

Using this technique?

I do like this technique for taking really clear images, although I wouldn't say that my set of images are similar to the images in my image bank- which I prefer more, this could be because those images are much softer and more exposed. As this effect does give a soft touch to images, I will not be using it for my independent project because I want to form really gritty and slum-like images, which this technique does not create.