Transparency, low key, high key

Last weekend I suddenly realized I have to deliver some images on Monday next week. I’m following a sort of advanced class with Dies Groot (www.diesgroot.nl). The assignment we got during the session about a month ago was: deliver 3 black and white images with subject transparency. At first you think, plenty of time, no worries. And then you suddenly find yourself one week before the deadline. Think of something that has to do with transparency, take the shots, do your post-processing, have them printed. A week turns out to be a short timespan. The beauty of it is, however, that when your under pressure you become creative and start to combine things. This is how the process went.

It had to be portraits, but somehow to do with transparency. So the idea was to use a veil. Wrap it around head and shoulders a bit. Another idea was to make portraits in combination with a window frame. Where to get such an item on a short notice? Disgarded as too cumbersome (for now), but the idea of using a veil stuck. I was also reading Christopher Grey’s book on studio lighting techniques about how to shoot high key and low key images. OK, now we were getting somewhere: a number of high key and low key portrait shots using a veil! Remember that in the previous blog entry I wrote that my wife and I were in the city of Groningen last Friday. After our visit to the museum we walked around the city and passed a number of shops. In the window of an antique shop was a beautiful off-white head. Besides being pricey, it didn’t have a veil. So we decided to leave it. A few shops further down the road was a party store. To cut a long story short, we bought a black hat with veil, a set of black and a set of white lace gloves, and a white mask. For only 12 euros all together!  We also had a piece of white curtain with a satin finish. All in all, more than enough to get started. If you want to get more background information on high/low key techniques and how the images were shot, simply click here. Some of my favourite shots are below.

By the way, all images were shot with the same white background. I have them printed by Profotonet (www.profotonet.nl) on Ilford black and white paper (so guaranteed no colourcast). Expecting them tomorrow or the day after. Way before Monday’s deadline….