Low-key photography

Low-key photography is a genre of photography consisting in shooting dark-colored scenes, and emphasizing natural or artificial light only on specific areas in the frame. This photographic style is usually used to create a mysterious atmosphere that only suggests various shapes, often graphic, letting the viewer communicate with the photograph through subjective interpretation.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary the term "low-key" appeared in 1895, a term that described something "low-keyed" (relating quiet sound or deep musical tone); according to the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary the term appeared between 1890-1895 however, the earliest (known) use of the term dates back to 1830 in the Genius of Liberty.

The "Rembrandt lighting" (or "Rembrandtian light") is a term correlated mostly with low-key portrait photography, and involves the use of a light source and a reflector, or two sources of light (a main and a very slow intensity fill light). The term was named after the style of lighting the face in most of Rembrandt's self-portraits, but also in other works, such as the Portrait of an Old Man in Red (1652-1654), dominated by Tenebrism.

Renaissance and Baroque painters have often used the sfumato,chiaroscuro and later the tenebroso painting modes not only to give a tridimensional impression in their paintings but also to achieve a dramatic atmosphere.

After the decline in popularity of the Pictorialism movement the new style of photographic Modernism came into vogue, and the public's interest shifted to more sharply focused images.Edward Steichen, Imogen Cunningham and Edward Weston were among the first photographers considered pioneers of low-key photography. Steichen's portrait of J.P. Morgan (1903), Pastoral – Moonlight (1907), published in Camera Work No 20, Cunningham's Succulent (1920) and Weston's Pepper No. 30 (1930) are considered the earliest low-key photographs.

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