High Key, Low Key, Contrast, and Scale

This week, we were given the second half of the "Vocabulary of Photography" assignment. This week, we were to photograph a high key, a low key, a picture with high contrast, and a picture that emphasizes scale. As with every assignment, we must take into consideration composition, depth of field, creativity, and lighting, as well as highlighting the above vocabulary words.

High Key

A high key image is one that consists primarily of whites and light tones.  I took this image on a day where the sky was pretty much white, and  I thought it worked as a high key photo, as most of the photo was white.  However, my professor pointed out to me that a high key photo must have exclusively light tones, so the black sign doesn't work quite as well,  Looking back, I probably should have submitted it as the high contrast piece.

Low Key

A low key image is one that contains predominantly dark tones.  My first thought was to take a photograph of my husband's cat, Loki, as she has a soul as black as her fur. Of course, this made taking a photograph of her challenging, as she is not really cat that can be posed.  Luckily, she decided to take a rest on her cat tree, so I placed some lamps around her so I could include some of the details of her fur.  Unfortunately the cat tree is a cream color, so I burned those portions in the picture in photoshop both to avoid drawing the eye there, and to keep it a low key picture. My favorite part of this picture is the focus; Loki's green eyes, which look appropriately scheming.

Contrast 

This picture was taken from across the football field of the newly built gazebo on the Carroll campus.  I took this particular photograph because I really liked how the light hit the gazebo at this time of the day. I felt that this angle was the best, as where the light hits the gazebo makes a great focal point. I took this picture very closely to the ground in front of the football field in order to get the grass in the front and to have it out of focus, which emphasizes the focal point even more. Taking the photo from this vantage point also makes the gazebo look a lot more real and powerful. I submitted this picture for the contrast assignment because of the great difference in tone from the very white of the gazebo to the dark colors in the shadows of the trees. 

Scale

To emphasize scale, which is comparing the size of one object to another, I used some small pinecones I found, each a different shade, and placed them in my husband's hand to show their size. I also did this at a time of the day that emphasized the shadows, and make the pinecone's sizes exaggerated. Looking at this photo now, I think that having his hands farther from the grass and to possibly blur it to emphasize the hands and pinecones.