Looking Up At High Key

Via Laietana, 8, Instituto Nacional de Estadística, #2, Barcelona, 2021 (No seagulls in this one, but very high key.)

I have been playing around a bit with occasional high key interpretations–and seagulls.

In most cases, I don’t think the effect works all that well. Sometimes, though, I think it might. It all depends, of course, on the message and mood the photographer is trying to convey.

What is High Key?

It isn’t just overexposing the image, although it can be in some circumstances.

Basically, high key photographs lack contrast, have minimal (or no) deep shadows, and have a minimal tonal range that is shifted to the right of your histogram. The whole image doesn’t have to be bright, but most of it will be.

High key generally expresses cleanliness, newness, brightness, and optimism… maybe that’s why wedding photography seems to be an area in which this kind of look is all the rage–what with folks going for the clean and pure countenance of the always beautiful and joyous bride.

It is also widely used in advertising and product photography.

But does it work with architecture?

Well, it will depend on what you want to communicate–and I’m not yet sure what I’m trying to say by doing this. For now, it’s just fun to experiment and see what “feels good” to my eye. As one of my favorite authors, Ed Abbey once said: