Low-Key Architecture Photography

Low-key images create mood and drama. As the name implies, they’re dark, full of shadows, and typically include a lot of black areas. On the opposite end of the spectrum are high-key images – bright, airy, light, and have lots of white.

One is not better than the other; it’s really just about what mood you want to convey with your images.

I find the easiest way to achieve this look is to expose for the highlights on your subject. This works especially well if your subject has both very dark and very bright areas. By exposing for the brightest or close to the brightest area within the frame, everything but that strong highlight will automatically go pretty dark.

Metallic subjects are particularly good for this.

However, this is not the only material where this works – concrete and other matte surfaces work just as well. However, it’s easier if you have a sunny day where some areas are getting some sunlight and others are in the shade.

However, it still works on overcast days as well. Those white blown-out skies can still create some decent light bouncing off edges for you to grab your exposure.

Outdoor locations are inherently easier, but it’s not impossible to get the same mood indoors. This atrium plays with the same idea of concentrating your exposure where the sunlight is the strongest.

Another indoor location; this had less direct and more diffuse light. It’s really a matter of still exposing for the brighter area, the railing in this case, but then also playing around with settings during post-processing. None of these images took excessive editing or masking. In fact, there is no masking, and most is done in Lightroom. It’s a matter of playing around with the sliders in the basic panel. Pretty much all of them: exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, blacks, dehaze, clarity. There is no magic amount; it’s very image-dependent, so just play around and don’t be afraid to be extreme and embrace the blacks. Don’t worry about your histogram; it’s more about whether the image feels how you want it to feel.

To share an example of what can be done with an evenly exposed image during post-processing, here is the same image processed three ways. The dynamic range in today’s cameras allows for a lot of flexibility during post-processing. Here is a range from high-key color, high-key black-and-white, and low-key black-and-white.