There is no such thing as a perfect way to light a photo. There are in fact, infinite ways to light an image. However, each and every type of lighting can fall somewhere on the spectrum of High Key to Low Key photography. Neither high key nor low key is more superior than the other. However, each types gives the images a different "feel". Therefore, its important to make note of how you want your images to "feel" and how do you want your audience to feel when looking at your image?
High Key Photography
Lighting is an extremely important aspect of photography. A High-key image, implies more light and/or a more evenly-lit images. Below is an example of a High Key image.
If you look at my subject's fact there is very little shadow, and even though there is still shadow here, but the shadows aren't very dark. Additionally, the background is also evenly-lit. Although, High Key photography is mostly a matter of lighting, you can also emphasize the "High-key" aspect of photography through your choice of color and tone. This image uses a vibrant purple and also warm tones. Here my subject is smiling, this also helps match the high-key lighting choice. Typically when someone chooses high-key lighting they choose bright colors in order to create a warm, happy, and sometimes playful feel to the image.
Low Key Photography
Low Key photography, as you might have guessed already, is the exact opposite of high-key. Instead of bright, evenly-lit images, a low-key images are dark and moody.
What makes this image very low-key is its lack of lighting in certain areas. The subject tends fade into the background with low-key lighting. As you can see on the right-side of the image, the subject's shoulder is no longer visible and part of their head is also no long visible. There is also split-lighting which is creating shadow on part of the subject's face. This image feels more mysterious, moody, and dramatic than the high-key image above.
As I stated previously, neither high-key nor low-key images are superior. However, its important to distinguish the difference in order to ensure that the overall "feel" you are trying to achieve matches your lighting set-up.
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