I have noticed that many people prefer a high key image to a low key image especially when doing portraits. I (as per usual) like the opposite. ALthough a high key image can be romantic and soft I tend to lean towrds low key type shots. I think the reason I prefer these darker images is the mystery that the dark tonal range can create. The brighter range will lend a certain virginal quality to an image and the darker range a more mysterous look. Some call this a more isolated or lonely look but I disagree there too. I feel the darker range tends to make me look more closely at an image to see what might not be so obvious. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? Magick Michael

I'm pretty much with you on this one Michael. While I can really appreciate and like high key images, I love low key. For the exact reason you state. There is just a mysterious nature about them. And combine it with the human form and it evokes a level sensuality that I don't think I've often seen in a high key image.

I like both..... FWIW.... I think it all depends on the mood you want to convey... I tend to like glamour shots in high key, don't know why...just how it is for me. But still-lifes especially in color... I like the soft muted tones of low key.... shrug

Some reasons that come to my mind for the bias toward high-key could be that low-key doesn't tend to reproduce well on a regular, non-calibrated computer monitor; it doesn't print as well on cheaper digital printers; and it doesn't scan as well on cheaper scanners (negatives OR prints).

If it really is a low-key kind of scene in the first place - as opposed to a subject or scene that has a more 'normal' range of tones or values, and is PhotoShop'ed-down to low-key - then it won't TAKE well on cheaper (or older) digital cameras ('posterization', 'dark noise', etc.).

From what I've seen, digital has not been so freindly toward low key imaging.

FILM can do a beautiful job with low-key, but there is still some special tecnique involved. working 'down on the toe' of a film's transfer curve can be tricky buisness - the whole look can change in just half-stop increments of exposure.

I'm not all that experienced with it yet myself, but I have some understanding from my own exposures, and learning from my printer, Fred Fischer, and from a more technical 'book' understanding from study.. When you work down near the toe, contrast changes continuously with small, incremental exposure/density changes (this smooth, constant rate-of-change of contrast, and its appearance on the transfer curve is WHY they call it 'the toe'). because of this, with print film there's a big difference between shooting it low key (so-to-say) in the first place, and doing it mainly in the darkroom - and for those film-shooters not serious enough about their printing work (yes, I mean to sound finger-wagging harsh when I say this!) to take their work to a GOOD CUSTOM LAB (or, of course, have their own darkroom), then you don't get that option. ..But many DO prefer to 'do it in the camera' anyway - it is definatly a different look (but you'll run into trouble at you're handy-dandy mini-lab with that too when they so kindy 'correct your exposure' for you).

Transparencies can render exraordinary low-key images, but exposure is really tricky with that.

In the realm of B&W silver prints - well I hope everyone knows that the B&W fine-art photogs can be downright OBSCESSIVE about the qualities of their shadow detail. Now if you ask me, the ultimate in a subtle, intoxicating low-key experience is a good silver print made from the right negative (usually medium or large format, unfortunately for me) of the right subject in the right light, at the right moment; and when the print is VIEWED in good light. Oh baby.

Have you ever been experienced? (All of you fellow Black and White shooters please don't forget to reply.......
Anybody there?)

Joe
Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA

Joe (Hey, glad you are back!) really caused me to think about this one, and also do something I usually do not do, which is go through the old picture album. I tend to very much agree; there is something about paper that lets us explore tones differently. These are not good scans, and truthfully the original prints were not all that hot. I think these are what you'd call "low key"?

These are not so much "high key" (though I think some of them are), as "limited key." Again, the very slight changes in grays is missed going digital. Something like this would make a good Challenge some month.

Oooo.... Misha.... I see some beautiful, beautiful, work in these samples... are these yours? I realize they are old but why are you hiding them...? I see at least a few I would love to see much bigger!

I don't think I've ever actually done a high-key image (using the technical definition of high-key). This is probably the closest I've come. -=>Donald