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Experimenting with Low Key Black and White Photography

28 Mar

The post Experimenting with Low Key Black and White Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

Think dark, moody shadows. Sparse illumination and a somber atmosphere. No color. This is low key black and white photography.

Experimenting with Low Key Black and White Photography Dark Male Portrait

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Usually one main light, or ‘key’ light, falls on your subject and the background fades to black. It’s all about the highlights and shadows and how they define the shapes in your composition.

Subject selection for shape

Low-key lighting will not suit every subject. You will find bold subjects and bold composition of subjects are best for low-key photography.

Busy scenes with a lot of detail end up looking jumbled and are best avoided. Or at least composed in such a way as to make the content in your photo minimal.

Experimenting with Low Key Black and White Photography Novice Monk Portrait

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

A novice monk in a shrine was the center of my attention. Around him was clutter. Bright sunlight shone through an opening with a grid, making the light directional.

By selecting to make my exposure based on the highlight on his face I have made the scene work in low-key black and white. The candles, people, Buddha image, and other distractions in the background are insignificant. Had I included them in my composition the impact of the simple outline of his face would be lost.

Exposure choice is essential

Low-key lighting is as much about the shadows as it is about the light.

Let the darkness envelope all but your main subject. Even let it consume most of your subject. So long as it enhances what you want to show.

Taking an exposure reading from the highlight area, when the light is harsh and the background is darker, creates a moodiness.

Experimenting with Low Key Black and White Photography High Structure Harsh in Silver Efex Pro

Small Buddha statue photographed on a bright, sunny afternoon

Set your ISO for the overall amount of light. Outside on a sunny day you need to keep your ISO low. Inside, or in other situations where there’s not much light, choose a higher ISO.

Balancing your aperture and shutter speed to the brightest parts of your composition will expose well.

This method of exposure will provide you highlights with detail and shadows rendering black, (or close to black.)

Experimenting with your settings will help you understand this principle. If you haven’t tried this, don’t make one exposure, make many of the same subject at various settings. When you view them on your computer, look at the metadata for the settings you used and make comparisons. Which settings give you the most pleasing results?

See in black and white

How will the tones of what you are seeing in color translate to black and white?

Complementary colors will help provide contrast in your black and white photos. Blue, violet and red convert to darker tones. Green, yellow and orange will convert to lighter tones.

Experimenting with Low Key Black and White Photography Muddy Ceramin Artist

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Setting your camera monitor display to grayscale will help you learn to see in black and white. When you try this at first look at the colors in your composition and see how they are shown in grayscale.

Color contrast is more critical when the light is softer. When the light is soft, it’s more challenging to make low-key photographs because the overall tone values are evener.

Squint your eyes to help you see

When you’re not sure if there’s enough contrast in a scene for a low-key black and white photo, squint your eyes. Doing this reduces what you see and contrast becomes more apparent.

Compare the brightest and darkest areas in what you are looking at. Train your eyes to understand when there will be enough contrast.

Experimenting with Low Key Black and White Photography Low Key Bottles

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

With your eyes open you can see a broader tone range than your camera is capable of recording. By squinting your eyes you are effectively narrowing the tone range which is visible to you.

The importance of post-processing for low-key digital photography

Even though your camera records a reduced tone range compared to what you see, it’s still recording more than you want for a low-key photo. Certainly more than photographing with black and white film.

Post-processing your photos to achieve the contrast and minimal tone range requires a different technique than it does for images showing a wide range of tones.

When you’ve made photos where you expose for the highlights it’s easy to darken the shadows during post-processing.

Experimenting with Low Key Black and White Photography Low Key Eyes

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

These are the tools I most frequently use when processing low-key photos to reduce the shadow detail:

  • Contrast
  • Blacks
  • Shadows
  • Highlights and Whites
  • The Burn tool (or similar)

Enhancing the overall contrast boosts the highlights and diminishes shadow detail. Increasing the blacks and decreasing the shadows will help gain the effect you want also.

Manipulating the whites and highlights will help you keep some detail in the brightest parts of your image. If the detail is totally removed low-key photos can still look okay, but it’s good to be mindful of this and make sure it’s a deliberate choice.

As with all post-processing there are many different ways to achieve the same or similar results. Experiment and find what works best for you with each photograph you work on. The more you try different methods the more skilled and quicker you will become.

Plug-ins and apps can make post-processing easier

I love using the Silver Efex Pro plug-in with Photoshop. There’s a good selection of presets which can also be customized after you have applied them.

Don’t get stuck thinking you need to use the Low-Key presets. If you’ve got your light and exposure right, other options will be more effective.

Experimenting with Low Key Black and White Photography Fine Art Process with extra burning in

I used the Silver Efex Pro preset ‘Fine Art Process’ and added extra burning in. © Kevin Landwer-Johan

Conclusion

Photography is very subjective. Like any form of creative expression, I believe there’s no real right or wrong way to express yourself.

Most important is that you take your photos and post process with intent. Knowing what you want before you press your shutter release will help you obtain the look and feel you want.

These few techniques outlined here are by no means exhaustive or complete. I want to encourage you to experiment. I hope these points give you some foundation to work on when experimenting with low key black and white photography.

Once you’ve had a chance to try some on your own please post your pictures and leave your comments below.

The post Experimenting with Low Key Black and White Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.


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3 Tips for Experimenting with Shutter Speed Creatively

08 Nov

So what exactly is shutter speed? In its simplest form, shutter speed refers to the length of time that your camera sensor is exposed to light (the shutter stays open) while taking a photo. A faster shutter speed thus lets in less light and a slower shutter speed lets in more light.

3 Tips for Experimenting with Shutter Speed Creatively

You may already be aware that shutter speed is one of the three elements of the Exposure Triangle that work in tandem. Thus changing your shutter speed leads to changing one of the two other elements (aperture and ISO) to compensate for your exposure.

Of the three, shutter speed is the one that allows you the most creative versatility. If you want to use shutter speed to make more artistic choices, let’s start with some basics.

1) Freezing Motion

Freezing action or motion happens at faster shutter speeds and literally captures a moment in time. If the shutter is open for a long time and your subject is moving, it looks blurred. On the converse side, when you have a faster shutter speed, any movement (blur) is less noticeable as it’s more frozen.

3 Tips for Experimenting with Shutter Speed Creatively

Sports photographers especially, take advantage of freezing motion techniques. Capturing that moment a player strikes a ball, crossing a finish line or just as that knockout punch is delivered is important in that genre of photography.

2) Panning

Panning is a technique where your moving object appears in focus, but the background appears to be moving at a higher speed. When using this technique, pick a subject that moves across your field of vision from side to side and not coming toward or moving away from you.

3 Tips for Experimenting with Shutter Speed Creatively

Pre-focusing at the distance where the subject will be when you shoot is a good habit. This is because autofocus can easily switch your camera focus to the background, instead of keeping it on the subject.

Lastly, your follow-through is a very important aspect of panning.

3 Tips for Experimenting with Shutter Speed Creatively

For example, if you are shooting a car, pre-focus on the road or area where the car will be. Then aim your camera in the direction that the car is coming from, and when it is almost in front of you, hold down the shutter button (make sure to set it to high-speed burst mode) and move your camera with the car’s movements.

Note: Pre-focusing helps you minimize shutter lag.

3 Tips for Experimenting with Shutter Speed Creatively

This technique takes some practice but is a lot of fun. If you find that your background is still sharp, use a slower shutter speed and retry. For best results, try and match the speed at which you pan with the speed of the object.

3) Slowing it down

Slow shutter times are when you leave the camera shutter open for much longer than normal. This is a highly creative effect and helps you show motion like movement in a crowd, light trails or fast flowing water. With slower shutter speeds, a tripod is an essential asset to avoid camera shake. You can also invest in a remote trigger or cable release to minimize shake even more.

3 Tips for Experimenting with Shutter Speed Creatively

When your shutter is open for long periods of time, you risk having too much light enter your camera. To help with this, you can use a smaller aperture (higher f-number), shoot at a low ISO, or cut the amount of light using filters.

Neutral Density (ND) filters are a landscape photographer’s best friend when it comes to shooting long exposures during the day. Slower shutter shooting is more widely known as long exposure photography.

3 Tips for Experimenting with Shutter Speed Creatively

An extremely long exposure here has made the water smooth and dreamy.

3 Tips for Experimenting with Shutter Speed Creatively

A faster shutter speed here has partially frozen the crashing wave.

Bonus: light painting with the shutter opened

This technique, also called light painting, is where you make images in a dark place (usually) by moving a hand-held light source (or by moving the camera), while your shutter is open. If you are moving the light source, you need the camera to be steady.

3 Tips for Experimenting with Shutter Speed Creatively

As in the previous tip, a tripod is recommended, but nothing is wrong with embracing blur as part of your creative technique. Once you are ready, dial in a slow shutter speed and set up a timer. Now use any handheld light source (e.g. torch, flashlight, light-stick or cellphone) to “paint” in your scene. It’s a cool approach you can use when storytelling.

Conclusion

Do you have a favorite way to use shutter speed creatively? Are you a fan of freezing motion or do you prefer long exposures? Have you ever tried panning or light painting? Share some of your work with us in the comments below.

The post 3 Tips for Experimenting with Shutter Speed Creatively by Nisha Ramroop appeared first on Digital Photography School.


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