DIGITAL UP MAGAZINE LIGHT THE STRENGTH OF THE LIGHT SOURCE ’High key’ is often used in fashion and industrial products photography. How we choose to illuminate the scene is a matter of our subjective interpretation. In most cases, we will have a balance between light and shade, which makes the average gray tones because that is what we are used to and what we consider »normal«. Also, there are situations in which »natural state of things«, tends towards extremely bright or dark: snow and fog on one hand, or night time on the other. Often the artists personally and consciously choose to highlight one of these two extremes for visual effect, or to convey a certain feeling to the viewers. [Photo: 3] Grzegorz Szczerbaciuk - Poland “High key” is often used in fashion and product photography. STRONG ILLUMINATION (HIGH KEY) Extremely illuminated scenes have mostly white and other bright tints are airy and give an impression of weightlessness. “High key” lighting is often (but not always) soft, and detail in it is lost. In nature, the “high key” light appears in the conditions like the mist and heavy snowfall, where even shadows are very bright because of the amount of reflected light that is reflected from all sides. In this photographic example, it’s used in a creative way to merge the background and clothes and create a unique negative space that frames the female figure. [ 76 ] DigitalUP