Low-Key 

What is low key; Low key light accentuates the contours of the subject by throwing areas into shade while a fill light or reflector may illuminate the shadow areas to control contrast. 

For these kind of photos I plan to use plenty of shadow overcasting body parts. My subject is to accentuate the shape and form. Mostly with the upper body or hands. 

MY PLAN-

For my Low key photo I want to use a Human subject. I think accentuating certain parts of the body is really fun and has a lot of emotion. I want to mostly work on portraits and show off the face and or collar bones. I need a lot of shadows so certain parts are shown but I still need soft lighting so its not a black photo. I really want to just have fun and experiment with this and try a lot of different poses and light distance and kind of lighting. I hope that this photo would be generic but still unique. 

SHOOTING/EDITING- 

While shooting I had a soft box on a modeling lamp to create the soft edges on my model so it all blends together nicely. I liked how the light was coming from the right side so I never really moved it much except for creating the shadows. I also had to play with different poses of course with my model to see how the light and shadows will cast. I liked when the face was towards the light but not directly at it and how the shadows fell across her face too. I also narrowed down my shoot to three photos that I thought had great potential and to see how they would look black and white. Some low key lightings look better with a black and white filter but I liked most without the filter. After the shooting I started to show more shadows and how the focus on the highlights on the facial features. I don't have much editing for this photo because I got the shadows the way I wanted in the shoot, I mainly had to make sure features weren't getting lost. I really liked having soft lighting and having the glasses still noticeable even in the shadows. I think low key is very easy to shoot as well. 

REFLECTION- With the course of the whole project I think that low key was a stronger compositions I can really get into. I thought that creating shadows and controlling the softness of the light was fun and having fun with the model as well. Overall I think this photo is one of my best.

High-Key 

High key was originally done partly for technological reasons, since early film and television did not deal well with high contrast ratios, but now is used to suggest an upbeat mood. However, for my photos I want to do something nonhuman, or still life. 

MY PLAN-

For high key, I want to do still life. Most photos that I've been researching as a 'painted white' model and I don't want to do paint my models. However I do like how regular still-life are already white (usually) and I can work with it a lot better. I can add my own little elements which can be fun. I also like the transparency kind of high key photography as well. I think that can also be fun and experimental as well. 

SHOOTING/EDITING- This concept was a little bit harder to accomplish because the flash I wanted to use wasn't syncing with my camera. I had to use a different light source which was harder to really control. I also had a lot of trouble with getting the right focus with the subjects and making sure it was never super blurry. Although I was basing off my shoot on Blake Kelloggs high key, I thought I could work different angles and different colors.

 My first shoot wasn't what I expected so I planned to reshoot again playing with different subject matter. So now I'm reshooting different objects that are potentially white or very light. My new subject will be something that is white to help eliminate shadows or to create a better high key photo. 

After my reshoot, which was with jewelry, I ended up liking theses ones a lot better because I was able to really control the lighting with the flash. I also thought the composition was better and the color as well. I liked how I was able to keep the color and have it high key. I mostly tried to eliminate most of the shadows and to accentuate the colors in the jewelry. Overall I think reshooting was a better option. 

REFLECTION- I was mostly stressing over high key the most because I came to the realization that I like shadows in my photography. It was hard to create something at first and being able to create a good composition. I think that from my first shoot to my second shoot that I improved a lot with the understanding of what elements are needed for high key. With this photo though I do think its a little basic and not very advance for my skill level but It helped me realized how to really control the lighting for the photo I needed to create.