![MyGrad](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/MyGrad.jpg)
Low-key photography is a genre of
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...
consisting of shooting dark-colored scenes by lowering or dimming the "
key
Key or The Key may refer to:
Common meanings
* Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm
* Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock
* Key (map ...
" or front light illuminating the scene (
low-key lighting
Low-key lighting is a style of lighting for photography, film or television. It is a necessary element in creating a chiaroscuro effect. Traditional photographic lighting (three-point lighting) uses a key light, a fill light and a back light for ...
), and emphasizing
natural
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are p ...
or
artificial light
Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing dayligh ...
only on specific areas in the frame. This photographic style is usually used to create a mysterious atmosphere, that only suggests various shapes, often graphic, letting the viewer experience the
photograph
A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...
through
subjective interpretation and often implies painting objects or the human body with black non-toxic dyes or pigments.
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
and
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
, represented by different painting styles including
sfumato
Sfumato (, ) is a painting technique for softening the transition between colours, mimicking an area beyond what the human eye is focusing on, or the out-of-focus plane. It is one of the canonical painting modes of the Renaissance. Leonardo da V ...
and
chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achi ...
used by artists like
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
and
Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...
),
tenebroso
Tenebrism, from Italian ' ("dark, gloomy, mysterious"), also occasionally called dramatic illumination, is a style of painting using especially pronounced chiaroscuro, where there are violent contrasts of light and dark, and where darkness become ...
(it. dark, mysterious) used by artists such as
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of hi ...
,
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...
,
Jusepe de Ribera
Jusepe de Ribera (1591 – 1652) was a painter and printmaker, who along with Francisco de Zurbarán, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and the singular Diego Velázquez, are regarded as the major artists of Spanish Baroque painting. Referring to ...
among others, produced paintings in which black was predominant on the canvas and the light often come from only one source to achieve dramatic scenes.
Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." ...
,
Yousuf Karsh
Yousuf Karsh, FRPS (December 23, 1908 – July 13, 2002) was a Canadian-Armenian photographer known for his portraits of notable individuals. He has been described as one of the greatest portrait photographers of the 20th century.
An Armenian ...
and
Irving Penn
Irving Penn (June 16, 1917October 7, 2009) was an American photographer known for his fashion photography, portraits, and still lifes. Penn's career included work at ''Vogue'' magazine, and independent advertising work for clients including Is ...
are among the photographers experienced with the "black on black" technique.
Etymology
According to the ''
Online Etymology Dictionary'' the term "low-key" appeared in 1895, a term that described something "low-keyed" (relating quiet sound or deep musical tone); according to the
Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary'' is a large American dictionary, first published in 1966 as ''The Random House Dictionary of the English Language: The Unabridged Edition''. Edited by Editor-in-chief Jess Stein, it contained 315, ...
the term appeared between 1890–1895; however, the earliest (known) use of the term dates back to 1830 in the ''Genius of Liberty''.
The "Rembrandt lighting" (or "Rembrandtian light") is a term correlated mostly with low-key
portrait photography
Portrait photography, or portraiture, is a type of photography aimed toward capturing the personality of a person or group of people by using effective Photographic lighting, lighting, Painted photography backdrops, backdrops, and poses. A portr ...
which uses a light source and a reflector, or two sources of light (a main and a very low intensity
fill light
Fill may refer to:
* Fill dirt, soil added to an area
** Fill (archaeology), the material that has accumulated or has been deposited into a cut feature such as ditch or pit
** Fill (land), dirt, rock or other material added to level or raise the ...
).
The term was named after the style of lighting the face in most of
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...
's self-portraits, but also in other works, such as the ''Portrait of an Old Man in Red'' (1652–1654), dominated by
Tenebrism
Tenebrism, from Italian ' ("dark, gloomy, mysterious"), also occasionally called dramatic illumination, is a style of painting using especially pronounced chiaroscuro, where there are violent contrasts of light and dark, and where darkness becomes ...
.
History
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
and
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
painters have often used the
sfumato
Sfumato (, ) is a painting technique for softening the transition between colours, mimicking an area beyond what the human eye is focusing on, or the out-of-focus plane. It is one of the canonical painting modes of the Renaissance. Leonardo da V ...
,
chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achi ...
and later the
tenebroso
Tenebrism, from Italian ' ("dark, gloomy, mysterious"), also occasionally called dramatic illumination, is a style of painting using especially pronounced chiaroscuro, where there are violent contrasts of light and dark, and where darkness become ...
painting modes not only to give a tridimensional impression in their paintings but also to achieve a dramatic atmosphere.
After the decline in popularity of the
Pictorialism
Pictorialism is an international style and aesthetic movement that dominated photography during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. There is no standard definition of the term, but in general it refers to a style in which the photographer ha ...
movement, the new style of photographic
Modernism
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
came into vogue, and the public's interest shifted to more sharply focused images.
Edward Steichen
Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Steichen was credited with tr ...
,
Imogen Cunningham
Imogen Cunningham (; April 12, 1883 – June 23, 1976) was an American photographer known for her botanical photography, nudes, and industrial landscapes. Cunningham was a member of the California-based Group f/64, known for its dedication to t ...
and
Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." ...
were among the first photographers considered pioneers of low-key photography. Steichen's portrait of
J. P. Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known ...
(1903), ''Pastoral – Moonlight'' (1907), published in ''
Camera Work
''Camera Work'' was a quarterly photographic journal published by Alfred Stieglitz from 1903 to 1917. It presented high-quality photogravures by some of the most important photographers in the world, with the goal to establish photography as a ...
'' No. 20, Cunningham's ''Succulent'' (1920) and Weston's ''
Pepper No. 30'' (1930) are considered the earliest low-key photographs.
In art, black regained some of the territory that it had lost during the 19th century. The Russian painter
Kasimir Malevich
Kazimir Severinovich Malevich ; german: Kasimir Malewitsch; pl, Kazimierz Malewicz; russian: Казими́р Севери́нович Мале́вич ; uk, Казимир Северинович Малевич, translit=Kazymyr Severynovych ...
, a member of the
Suprematist
Suprematism (russian: Супремати́зм) is an early twentieth-century art movement focused on the fundamentals of geometry (circles, squares, rectangles), painted in a limited range of colors. The term ''suprematism'' refers to an abstra ...
movement, created the
Black Square
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have ...
in 1915, is widely considered the first purely abstract painting. He wrote, "The painted work is no longer simply the imitation of reality, but is this very reality ... It is not a demonstration of ability, but the materialization of an idea."
Painting
![MonaLisa sfumato](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/MonaLisa_sfumato.jpeg)
The antagonism between light and shadow is a basic principle of a visual image, regardless of its nature.
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
pioneered the
sfumato
Sfumato (, ) is a painting technique for softening the transition between colours, mimicking an area beyond what the human eye is focusing on, or the out-of-focus plane. It is one of the canonical painting modes of the Renaissance. Leonardo da V ...
technique so he could soften the transition from lighter areas to darker ones in some of his paintings. In his notes about painting, he highlights that light and shadow should intermingle "without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the focus plane".
Sfumato usually implies using many translucent layers to create a gradual tone spectrum from dark to light, eliminating thus the unwanted sharp contours. The technique is emphasized in the ''
Mona Lisa
The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best known ...
'' (1503–1506,
Musée du Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
,
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
).
![Rembrandt Harmensz](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Rembrandt_Harmensz._van_Rijn_003.jpg)
On the other hand,
chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achi ...
, another
oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
technique, uses strong tonal
contrasts between light and dark to model three-dimensional forms, often to dramatic effect.
The first use of light-dark three-dimensional shadows – known as
"''skiagraphia''" or "shadow-painting" in Ancient Greece – is traditionally attributed to the Athenian painter of the fifth century BC,
Apollodorus
Apollodorus (Ancient Greek, Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ''Apollodoros'') was a popular name in ancient Greece. It is the masculine gender of a noun compounded from Apollo, the deity, and doron, "gift"; that is, "Gift of Apollo." It may refer to: ...
(in ''De Gloria Atheniensum'',
Plutarch
Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''P ...
).
Leonardo da Vinci, through his ''
Virgin of the Rocks
The ''Virgin of the Rocks'' ( it, Vergine delle rocce), sometimes the ''Madonna of the Rocks'', is the name of two paintings by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, of the same subject, with a composition which is identical except fo ...
'' (1483–1486,
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
, Paris), influenced the use of chiaroscuro to create the illusion of depth; however, the term is most often associated with the works created in
Mannerism
Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, ...
and
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
. In the Renaissance, the technique became essential to all "religious" painters who followed the visions of
Bridget of Sweden
Bridget of Sweden (c. 1303 – 23 July 1373) born as Birgitta Birgersdotter, also Birgitta of Vadstena, or Saint Birgitta ( sv, heliga Birgitta), was a mystic and a saint, and she was also the founder of the Bridgettines nuns and monks after t ...
, who claimed to have seen the light of Christ. In the paintings with religious scenes, the Renaissance artists reassigned this holy light as the predominant source of illumination, relying heavily on the chiaroscuro technique. This compositional approach has been extensively used in Tintoretto's
''Last Supper'' (1592–1594). If the religious chiaroscuro of the Renaissance served to create quiet and calm scenes, painters such as
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of hi ...
,
Baglione
Giovanni Baglione (1566 – 30 December 1643) was an Italian Late Mannerist and Early Baroque painter and art historian. He is best remembered for his acrimonious and damaging involvement with the slightly younger artist Caravaggio and ...
,
Veronese, and
Georges de La Tour
Georges de La Tour (13 March 1593 – 30 January 1652) was a French Baroque painter, who spent most of his working life in the Duchy of Lorraine, which was temporarily absorbed into France between 1641 and 1648. He painted mostly religious chia ...
, had the tendency to use this style for a dramatic effect.
In Baroque, painting relied heavily on the use of shadows for their dramatic effect. Caravaggio has accomplished the dramatic illumination to its greatest extent with his method called
tenebrism
Tenebrism, from Italian ' ("dark, gloomy, mysterious"), also occasionally called dramatic illumination, is a style of painting using especially pronounced chiaroscuro, where there are violent contrasts of light and dark, and where darkness becomes ...
– a technique that has spread to Europe under the name of
caravaggism
The Caravaggisti (or the "Caravagesques") were stylistic followers of the late 16th-century Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio. His influence on the new Baroque style that eventually emerged from Mannerism was profound. Caravaggio never establishe ...
. The works of
Adam Elsheimer
__NOTOC__
Adam Elsheimer (18 March 1578 – 11 December 1610) was a German artist working in Rome, who died at only thirty-two, but was very influential in the early 17th century in the field of Baroque paintings. His relatively few paintin ...
's were a turning point between chiaroscuro and tenebrism.
At first glance, a tenebrism painting could look very similar to the one using powerful chiaroscuro effects. However, there is a difference between the two styles: chiaroscuro is a shading technique used especially to give objects the illusion of volume, while tenebrism is a compositional technique that uses very dark shadows, in which some areas of the painting are preserved darkly (sometimes black), allowing only one or two areas of interest to be strongly illuminated; at the same time, the transition from light to dark is not gradual. The style was used for a purely dramatic effect (hence the term "dramatic illumination"), and there was no involvement in trying to create the illusion of three-dimensionality.
This style has been the victim of many negative criticisms in the Baroque, critics accusing artists of using this method to "hide" the mistakes of the paintings. First, Caravaggio's art, which approached the new artistic style in the most radical way, was aimed. Like Caravaggio, Rembrandt as well was accused of hiding his defects in the shades' painting.
Tenebrism gave the darkness a positive value, both iconic and symbolic, creating thus a new aesthetics. Darkness was equivalent to light, because it conditioned the glory and the majesty of the latter. The symbols of light and darkness were expressed in the works of Tintoretto, Caravaggio, Georges de La Tour and Rembrandt.
Photography
![Sir Winston Churchill - 19086236948](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Sir_Winston_Churchill_-_19086236948.jpg)
In the photography of one of the most prominent portraitists, the Canadian
Yousuf Karsh
Yousuf Karsh, FRPS (December 23, 1908 – July 13, 2002) was a Canadian-Armenian photographer known for his portraits of notable individuals. He has been described as one of the greatest portrait photographers of the 20th century.
An Armenian ...
(1908–2002), the light only outlines the face; it may highlight it more or less intensely, but from an artistic point of view, light plays a secondary role in the scene along with the main subject. His portraits contain large areas of black, and the subject appears like a spot in that
achromatic nothingness. Nothing competes with the areas of his subjects' faces being highlighted, which gives the portraits an almost mystical aura.
Thus, in the portrait of
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
, which according to ''
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...
'' is the "most reproduced portrait in the history of photography"
and has been described as one of the "most iconic portraits ever shot",
only his face is highlighted, while his head is outlined by another, very low light source, coming from the back; in the portrait of
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius ( ; ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 186520 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and 20th-century classical music, early-modern periods. He is widely regarded as his country's greatest com ...
, the light is reduced even more, with half of the face being in gloom; in
Helen Keller with
Polly Thompson, both subjects are dressed in black and the background is also entirely black, so the photograph gives an impression of detachment, dissolution;
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related top ...
seems to emerge from a black ocean; the portrait of the French writer
François Mauriac
François Charles Mauriac (, oc, Francés Carles Mauriac; 11 October 1885 – 1 September 1970) was a French novelist, dramatist, critic, poet, and journalist, a member of the'' Académie française'' (from 1933), and laureate of the Nobel Priz ...
is only contoured from semi-profile, only an almost-abstracted line appearing on the black background.
The strong contrast between black and white and the use of this contrast to overcome classical portraits, is characteristic of all these portraits, thus creating a dramatic,
enigmatic, mystical atmosphere, abundantly making use of the so-called "active black". Yousuf Karsh is considered to be one of the contemporary artists who adopt the low-key photographic style in the most efficient manner,
being called "one of the 20th century's great portrait photographers" by ''Time'' magazine.
Other noteworthy examples that deal with black hues photography include
Paul Strand
Paul Strand (October 16, 1890 – March 31, 1976) was an American photographer and filmmaker who, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century. ...
's ''Blind'' (1916), where the subject is deliberately shadowed in order to create the gloomy atmosphere of the image, and the "Blind" sign is lit;
Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advoca ...
's ''Mt. Moran, Teton National Park'', natural light falls only on the peak of the mountain, while the rest of the photo is a mixture of dark grey tones; some of
Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." ...
's photographs are also illustrative of the low-key style, such as ''Nautilus'' (1930), ''Pepper No. 30'' (1930), ''Cabbage Leaf'' (1931);
Brassaï
Brassaï (; pseudonym of Gyula Halász; 9 September 1899 – 8 July 1984) was a Hungarian–French photographer, sculptor, medalist, writer, and filmmaker who rose to international fame in France in the 20th century. He was one of the numerous H ...
's ''Filles de joie, Quartier Italie'' (1932);
Bresson's ''Nehru Announces Gandhi's Death'', (1948). In 1944,
Robert Capa
Robert Capa (born Endre Ernő Friedmann; October 22, 1913 – May 25, 1954) was a Hungarian-American war photographer and photojournalist as well as the companion and professional partner of photographer Gerda Taro. He is considered by some to ...
takes photos of
Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
in natural light that only highlights the right half of his face, leaving the left one in the shade.
Irving Penn
Irving Penn (June 16, 1917October 7, 2009) was an American photographer known for his fashion photography, portraits, and still lifes. Penn's career included work at ''Vogue'' magazine, and independent advertising work for clients including Is ...
(1917–2009) took several low-key photographs of the American jazz trumpeter and composer
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
.
Among
postmodernist
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
photographers, the Australian
Bill Henson
Bill Henson (born 7 October 1955) is an Australian contemporary art photographer.
Art
Henson has exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Venice Biennale, the National Gal ...
photographs controversial nudes in low-key, Elad David works mainly with male nudes and in some of them only the busts – no head – of young men, is highlighted, leaving everything else in pitch black.
Another artist who created a series of low-key photos exhibited in numerous exhibitions around the world, is the Finnish photographer Juha Arvid Helminen. He named his series ''The Invisible Empire'', and refers to the shield that black colour offers, like a mask between who we truly are and the way society perceives us.
Technique
![Painting on the human body](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Painting_on_the_human_body.jpg)
Taking low-key photographs is possible in dark rooms where light penetrates only through a small window or a single unidirectional soft light, but the best results are achieved by using artificial studio lights.
Sometimes, a single directed light source is sufficient. Usually, well-targeted sources are used to get the desired effect, since a large light source could considerably reduce the desired result. Special attention is paid to having sufficient neutral details that will, invariably, be left in the shade.
This type of lighting is also known as
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...
ian light.
There are various technical challenges depending on the subject, what the photographer wants to highlight, or how many subjects are in the frame. Therefore, photographing a single person and, for instance, if the photographer wants to highlight only half of the subject's face, a single light source placed laterally, at a certain distance and angle to the subject, and possibly a blend, will be usually used.
Experimenting with different light intensities is performed until the desired effect is achieved. For photographing two people or a static scene, two or even three sources of light (one or two for contour, and a very low-intensity fill light) are usually used. The background is kept dark (ideally, fully black), as well as part of the face that will remain in the shade.
The relative power of the main and the fill lights, known as light ratio, can be measured using a
light meter
A light meter is a device used to measure the amount of light. In photography, a light meter (more correctly an exposure meter) is used to determine the proper exposure for a photograph. The meter will include either a digital or analog calcul ...
. The low-key technique has a higher light ratio, for example 8:1, while the high-key technique has a lower ratio, around 1:1. According to photographer Gavin Hoey "the first attention to detail has to be the background. It is best to keep it black or dark gray ... and from there, it is about improvising to achieve that perfect shot you have in mind" Lights Talking advises choosing and maintaining the lowest ISO (100, 64 or even 32) to get noise-free photographs.
Painting the human body in black
Unlike tattoo and other forms of body art, body painting is temporary, painted onto the human skin, and can last several hours or many weeks (in the case of mehndi or "henna tattoos" about two weeks).
Painting the human body in black is also employed in low-key photography using non-toxic dyes or pigments in order to darken and enhance as much as possible the colour of the subjects photographed, and to achieve the desired effects.
In order to achieve the effect of reflection of light that creates a white contour of the painted body, as well as a high contrast between black and white, various dyes mixed with body creams are used. These usually include
henna
Henna is a dye prepared from the plant ''Lawsonia inermis'', also known as the henna tree, the mignonette tree, and the Egyptian privet, the sole species of the genus ''Lawsonia''.
''Henna'' can also refer to the temporary body art resulting fr ...
,
tempera
Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...
or
acrylic paint
Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based, but become water-resistant when dry. Depe ...
.
Liquid latex
Liquid latex is a compound often used for special effects makeup, body painting, mask making, and casting applications.
Composition
Liquid latex is usually made of 33% latex, 66% water, and less than 1% ammonia (to increase its shelf life and ...
, which is composed of natural latex and dyes, is also used with caution to avoid stopping the skin to breathe.
Acrylic paint can be applied on the body with simple brushes or aerographs. This is one of the most used techniques because it dries very fast, provides elasticity and does not stain, since it is a water-soluble dye.
Gallery
File:Low key photography2.jpg, Basic low-key photograph created by using only one source of light
File:Gombos-3860.jpg, Low-key portrait using a single source of light
File:Low Key Static.jpg, Low-key photograph created by using a single source of light
File: Low-key photograph combined mixed with red.jpg, Low-key photograph combined mixed with red; two light sources
File:Untitled-(77-of-1).jpg, Low-key photograph using two light sources; painted bodies
File:White and black225.jpg, Low-key photograph created by using natural light
File:Shadows 44.jpg, Low-key photograph created by using natural light
See also
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Black light theatre
Black light theatre (in Czech ''černé divadlo'') or simply black theatre, is a theatrical performance style characterized by the use of black box theatre augmented by black light illusion. This form of theatre originated from Asia and can be f ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Low-key Photography
Photographic techniques
Photography by genre