When Is a Dark Photo Not Low-Key?

jahiba wrote on Tuesday 8 April 2025 at 12:13  | reply

In my opinion, a low-key photo and photo in which the surroundings have deliberately been made dark by using the right settings on the camera (not just underexposure). The dark parts must not have become blocked up. Your histogram provides clarity on this.
But this is only an opinion....

Well, I often find the creativity of the result a delight to the eye. To make a simplistic judgment about whether it is low-key or not is much less important. I do understand that you can arrive at a beautiful and creative result through a certain approach (e.g. low-key). But yes, I always find it difficult to draw sharp boundaries between the different genres and it is (sometimes) a limitation to enjoying photography and especially the photos taken. And yes, sometimes you do need a point of reference and a piece of equipment. My advice is enjoy yourself and shoot what you have in mind.

Why are dark areas not allowed to be blocked up? Low-key's charm is precisely that there is a lot of black, which makes the light stand out.
And a long time ago I attended a lecture by a famous Dutch photographer who did a lot of black-and-white. Also low- and high-key.
And he asked the audience, what do you think of this photo with a lot of blocked-up black (it wasn't a photo of his, so as not to influence the audience). And by far the most common answer was, the black was blocked up, so the photo was worse.
And his question in response was. Do you do black-and-white photography or shades-of-gray photography?
It came down to the fact that blocked-up black actually works well in a photo, because if there is sometimes too much detail in the dark areas, it distracts from the actual subject, which makes the photo worse.
And lastly he said, don't be afraid of black or of white.

Hi Nando, I don't consider the last three photos in your article to be low-key. Just an evening photo or night photos with artificial light. The examples you give above are low-key photos to me, because the focus there was deliberately on dark and a few light areas. As far as I'm concerned, there can definitely be truly black areas in the photo, as long as it produces a good result.

For me there is only one low-key photo in the story and that is the portrait.
For my feeling you can only make a low-key in a studio with just one lamp/directed at the subject from a certain angle, whereby the subject is partly lit. The rest is black.
A photo that is made partly black in post-processing is not a low-key for me.
The photo with the birch trees in the article is a photo with grazing light for me. Nothing more and nothing less. Mind you, I do think it is a beautiful photo, but I cannot call it a low-key.
You make low-key during the shoot and not by making part of it black in post-processing. You may make part of it black as far as I am concerned, but then it is the suggestion of a low-key.
My statement also applies to high-key, you do that during the shoot with lots of light and lots of white.

@guest For me, that does matter. Especially now with the digital possibilities, you can turn ANY photo into a low-key or high-key photo. That does take a lot of time. That's why it's better to do it correctly right away, so the photo is already good straight out of the camera.