On this video tutorial photographer Gavin Hoey takes a look at how to shoot a simple, yet beautiful low key image with very simple tools in the studio.
The basic idea of this video is really simple – one light from the side of the model – no light on the (black) background, make sure you meter your subject and there you go.
One thing which kind of bothered us in this tutorial is that the positioning of the lighting here required Hoey to have the model always face sideways – that can be nice for some shots but in some situations you actually want a front facing model and than you get a spill of the front facing light to the background (and you simply need a larger studio and a longer distance between the model and the background).
On the plus side – the finial tip in the end of this video for how you can remove the softbox and some of the light spill using Adobe Camera RAW in a very simple way.
This is also not the first time that we are looking at shooting low key shots and dramatic portraits – you can also check out “How to Shoot Low-Key Film Noir Style Portrait with 2 Speedlights” with Erik Valid and “Shooting with a Softbox Grid for Dramatic Soft Lighting” by Gavin Hoey himself.
You can check out many more helpful photography tips on ourPhotography tips section and check out some of Gavin Hoey’s other videos here on LensVid.
Iddo Genuth 
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