Lighting/camera technique advice for High key?

KinueGee

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Hey guys, I'm new to the forum and a bit of a newbie to the whole art of digital photography as well. I have a question concerning my technique in a high key lighting environment. Whenever I take a photo of my subject, half their face very lit and the other half in the shadows, the lit up portion of my photo always comes out much too overexposed. I try changing the settings of my camera, but no matter what the lit up portion is always much too bright and as a result interferes with the details on their face. How can I fix this so enough detail is shown in the shadowy parts of their face AND the lit of portion of their face? and if this isn't possible, what's an alternative?
Thanks very much!:mrgreen:
 
Oh I forgot to mention, none of this lighting is done in a studio. When I say high key lighting environment, I mean a photo taken during a time of day when the the sun is setting and it's very brightly lit on one side of my subject.
 
Sounds like you need to meter for the highlights and then light up the fill side of the face with a reflector or fill flash. Keep in mind that the background has got to fall into High Key as well.
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Keep it simple, shoot well, Joe
 
What you are describing really isn't high key photography.
High key photography is brightly lit, with very controlled light, getting rid of a majority of shadows, leaving just enough to define the subject.

That said, it sounds like you just need to make use of a reflector to brighten up the shadows.
 
Okay, so what I gather from that is I can't avoid being overexposed in an uncontrolled lighting environment?
 
Right, my mistake. I just didn't know how to describe the lighting otherwise.
 
Ah.

Well, just to become more familiar with high key and low key lighting, do a google image search for each, or search Flickr as well.
Then you will have two more techniques to practice. :sexywink:
 

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