High Key lighting work diary

In this shoot I attempted the high key lighting technique. The image above illustrates how I set up my shoot in order to put this technique into practise. I had to use white background and also used two back lights behind the subject which pointed at the reflectors which project the light onto the background further, ensuring that there are no shadows visible. I then had two soft boxes at the front of the set which enlightened the subject and then I set my camera to F16 to make sure that there were minimal shadows on the model also. When shooting I mostly shot in a portrait orientation, making the subject pull a range of poses, most of the time looking directly at the camera.

I feel that this attempt at high key lighting is quite successful as I have effectively used the high key lighting set up in order to make the background pure white. I set my camera to F16 which was the correct aperture level. Also I shot in the portrait orientation, capturing the subject from their chest upwards. I ensured that the model was looking directly at the camera as do most of the models do in the photos I found in my image bank. In order to improve this image more I feel that I could make sure that the model is topless, allowing the collar bones and body frame to be seen. Also I feel that I could use a female as the subject and then expose her a little more, making her skin look much lighter and perhaps introduce makeup order to introduce colour and femininity.

When taking this second image the camera was set to F11 which meant that more light was let into the camera, meaning that the image would be more exposed to the light. However, in this case I feel that the outcome is slightly too over exposed as the outline of the t shirt can hardly be seen. To improve this I could lower the aperture level and also lower the saturation levels to eliminate the orange glow of the subjects skin. On the plus side I feel that the way in which the composition is used is very effective.

Progression

I feel that the technique of high key lighting would be very useful for my product as it very effective in intensifying colour in a photo. I would use this technique and apply colourful make up or paint to the subject which would stand out from the light skin and background. Also I could create specific colour schemes with costumes, makeup and props and even could alter the colour of the subjects eyes, ultimately creating a certain connotation,