I’ve been working long hours so here is another quick post and a quick session. The beautiful thing about low key lighting is that it is easy to do as it can be done with just one light. That’s also why I recommend those just getting started with lighting to dive right into it because there is a lot of room for error. Even if you fail to get the shot you want, you will likely get something decent out of it. Any session where you have a good chance of walking away with something, even if it isn’t what you had in mind, is a good session for beginners.
That stated, for this one I had a speedlight and a snoot. The snoot turned the light into more of a narrow beam closer to a spotlight which in turn creates a quicker light falloff. Since it is a single light, you can set your F-stop down to reduce the other ambient light sources. Would you believe this hallway had the normal hallway lights? Yeah, the settings washed those out easily, so the room looks dark. I was also going for speed, so this session actually only took 15 minutes to do. That includes setup and dismantle.
For poses, any look can work but thankfully lowkey lighting works great for sad, concerned, or frustrated, but also can work for most other emotions. This makes for a really nice photo session because you can often start with that apprehensive feeling a lot of people have regarding getting photographed, immediately show them how cool you can make them with just that feeling, and then easily get them to relax and show other, happier emotions. It’s just a really cool photo style and worth understanding.