This article is part of the ‘Portrait Lighting For Beginners’ series. This series is meant to help you go from a beginning photographer to making beautiful portraits.

Wow, it’s been a long time since I left off on this series. The last article from the series, Mid Key Lighting, was over a year ago! I’ll try to be better about writing more of these. So here we go, high key lighting.

My son on his 1st birthday

The Concept

So now you’ve learned about low key and mid key lighting. To recap, low key is where the photograph is dominated by darker tones. Mid key is dominated by medium tones. Can you guess what high key is? Yep, totally dominated by bright tones.

A high key image lends itself to a bright and cheery feel. It evokes happy emotions.

This is exactly why I chose to photograph my son in high key for his first birthday portrait. It’s an awesome, happy time, full of cheer and pride for tackling that difficult first year. The first year is full of challenges and triumphs, both for baby and parents. The first birthday also marks the beginning of the “sweet spot” (in my opinion). Year number two is awesome! Then comes year number three, when the terrible twos start, then the honeymoon is over! Ahem, ok back to the program.

Background

Obviously, since high key is bright, you’ll need a bright background. White seamless paper is my choice here. You could use white cloth, but paper seems to work best. You could use a less than white background, and nuke it with lights, but I wouldn’t suggest it, especially if you’re just starting out with this style of lighting.

Sublime Light is a web site dedicated to teaching you to photograph people like a pro. For the latest articles, check out the home page.

If you take enough photos of people, eventually you’ll photograph someone who is either a little heavier or thinks that they are. This is especially true for those of us in the U.S., where obesity rates are sky high. The good news for you is that there are a few tricks you can add to your bag to help make your subject look thinner. You’ll get the photo, your subject will be happy with it, and everyone wins.

Lighting and Gear Tips

Short lighting and high ratio

1. Use short lighting. Short (or narrow) lighting is when your subject’s face is turned away from the camera, and the lighting is such that the lit side of the face is facing away from you. If you were to use broad lighting, the side closer to you would be lit, and it would make the face look larger. Read more on how to use short lighting.

2. Use a high lighting ratio. This goes along with the short lighting tip. Keeping your fill light dialed down means that your subject will stay more in shadow on the side opposite the key light. If part of the body is more in shadow, your eyes will tell your brain the person is thinner when you look at the photo.