quite often i really don't worry about
creases on a black background because
it's not like you're going to see them
they tend to just disappear into the
shadows but today
a little bit different hello i'm gavin
hoey and you're watching adoramatv
brought to you by adorama the camera
soul that's got everything for us
photographers and in this video i'm
going to show you three different
low-key portrait ideas perfect if you're
just starting off with low-key photos
now to make this work i've got pretty
basic kit i've got one light maybe two
at the most and a simple fabric
background whilst i'm setting this up
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right let's get a light set actually no
that is it that is that's the light set
let's get a model in let's get shooting
to help me out today i've got the
amazing sophie
sophie is going to be the model for this
shoot but before we get going let's just
quickly talk about the styling and the
background so for a low-key setup the
easiest way to go is with a dark
background already and sophie is styled
in dark clothing which is all going to
make life a little bit easier then
there's the camera settings so i'm going
to work in manual mode for this so i'm
going to dial in some settings i'm going
to go with f8 as my aperture 200 iso
which is a native iso for my olympus
camera and 250th of a second as my
shutter speed which is my flash sync
speed and the first picture i'm going to
take is perhaps the most important it's
a picture without any flash at those
settings okay sophie quick test shot
and no flash gives me no picture this is
actually the blackest black i'm gonna
get in my low key shot
i'm trying to set my flash so it reads
exactly the same settings as my camera
which is f8 now i'm using a flash meter
but you could do this by trial and error
if you prefer
what that means is i now have the
correct exposure on sophie my flash for
this is a flashpoint explore 300 and i'm
using this particular light because it
has one little bonus that's just going
to make my life a wee bit easier it has
a built-in modeling lamp again not
essential but really helpful okay let's
take a shot like this and see how it
looks at these settings
okay sophie here we go
and what i get is a very dramatic shot
but it's not really a low key shot
because there's quite a bit of
highlights and quite a few mid tones in
this picture
to really make this look and feel more
low-key i'm gonna try two different
things i'm gonna try adding in sophie's
hat well actually sophie you're going to
add in your hats there we go and also my
little grid here but this will get to in
a minute let's pop the hat on and let's
just see if this makes it more low-key
the way it's going to be more low-key is
by increasing the shadows in this shot
and the hat with a wide brim is
definitely going to cast some shadows
okay so i think let's just take a little
test shot see where we go
so now we're getting a little bit more
mood in this picture we definitely have
more shadows in the shot than we had
before and we can make it even more
dramatic sophie can you tilt it the
other way for me
perfect
that's great
okay
by tilting the hat in the other
direction now we're getting something
very moody you don't always have to see
your model's eyes for it to be a
interesting portrait
however i need to guide sophie because
she can't see where this light is going
to go so i can give her a little bit of
direction so sophie just tilt that a bit
more
that's pretty good
and
yeah that's great just slightly chin up
wee bit great stuff
so there's still a little bit of gray on
sophie's top i can deal with that by
adding in the grid so this is a grid
that allows me to push the light in one
direction if you want to find out more
about grids we've got a lot of videos
right here on adoramatv normally i lose
about a stop of light let's just see
sophie i'm going to pop this near your
chin now this is really important there
is a hat that's casting a shadow i've
got to make sure i don't put my flash
meter in that shadow so i'm going to
bring it a little bit further out than i
would normally
perfect there we go
so that's great
here we go again
so that is a lot more dramatic and a lot
more low-key and this is going to be my
first low-key setup so sophie are you
ready okay let's take some shots like
this here we go
[Music]
i could have added the vineyard inside
of photoshop but doing it in camera is
far more satisfying and if i've got a
lot of photographs to work through it's
much quicker too
[Music]
my second way of getting low-key shots
is perhaps the simplest way it's getting
the light and rather than lighting
sophie from the front like this i'm
actually going to put the light right
around the back of sophie like that so
it's going to come in from the side
i've already taken a meter reading for
this so i know the exposure is correct
let's just take a test shot and see what
we get here we go sophie
and what we get is well quite a dramatic
portrait in as much as sophie is half
lit and it is i guess low key but it's
not quite what i'm after
so what i need sophie to do is just
change one thing and that is the
direction that she's looking in so
rather than looking at me she needs to
look towards the light but top tip don't
ask your model to look straight at the
light a bear flash can be quite an
uncomfortable experience to look at okay
sophie here we go
the exposure course is exactly the same
and now we have something that has a
little bit more interest and that works
quite well except of course the right
hand side where sophie is just drifting
into the shadows
my solution for this is going to be this
silver reflector and i'm using silver
because i want to push as much light
back onto sophie as i can bearing in
mind there's only a small area of light
from the grid that's going to hit this
reflector and then sophie's blocking
some of that as well so the silver
reflector is the way to go for this
setup okay sophie here we go quick test
shot
and you can see that that bounces a tiny
bit of light onto the back of sophie and
just helps to separate that area out
from the dark background
okay so that's my second low-key setup
ready to go sophie are you ready okay
let's take some shots here we go
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
what i can do is take this basic idea
and make it a little bit more exciting
by adding a small prop and a bit of help
from sam
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
for my third and final low-key lighting
setup i've got all arts and crafts and
i've made this little kind of letterbox
slot in a piece of foam core yep no
expense spread for this shoot what
that's going to do is put a little slot
of light across sophie and to achieve it
i've switched to a different grid so if
you get a set of grids and you'll find
links in the video description for what
i'm using you'll get a really tight grid
like this 10 degree grid
however i'm not sure how much light to
put onto sophie through that slot and
through the grid i could try the flash
meter but it's a very small area to get
right so i'm going to do trial and error
instead i'm at 130 second power let's
take a test shot see what we get
and i get a slot of light but not really
bright enough i reckon two stops more
light is required so i'm going to go to
132nd 1 16 that's one more stop of light
1 16 to 1 8 power that's two stops of
light here we go
and that looks very dramatic
but maybe there's just a bit too much
shadow in this picture
what i'm going to do is add this which
is a second light it's a flashpoint
evolve 200 and its job is just to put a
little bit of light into the shadows
i've got it on a pretty low power 1 128
power let's just turn off the main light
and show you what this light is doing
okay sophie here we go
so it is adding just a little bit of
fill light into the shadow side of this
shot it's not a lot but it's enough just
to elevate this picture and be able to
see a bit more of sophie so she's not
completely blending in with the shadows
one thing i don't need is the silver
reflector because that little slot of
light is so small it's not really going
to reflect off of that so that's gone
but one thing i definitely do need is to
turn the modeling lamp on because that
will guide me it'll show me exactly
where that slot of light is going to be
on sophie's face okay everything is set
up sophie are you ready okay let's take
some shots like this here we go
[Music]
the way it works with the cookie is this
the closer you get it to your subject
the sharper the effect will be but the
greater the risk of you accidentally
capturing it in your shops
now you might have noticed the one thing
i've not done in this video is define
what a loki image actually is and that's
because well there's no real rules in
photography if you think it's loki it
probably is
for me a loki image is one where the
vast majority of the images in the
shadow side but there's still some
highlights if you look at the histogram
from one of my images you can see it
looks really weird large spike on the
left hand side but the line does extend
all the way to the right hand side
meaning there is a true highlight in
this image
somewhere now if you've enjoyed this
video or you've got any questions leave
me a comment down below click on the
bell icon and you'll never miss a video
right here on adoramatv and of course
remember to click on that subscribe
button i'm gavin hoey thanks for
watching