Voting for the "Low Key" Weekly Photography Assignment

[keithsnell]

Please vote for your favorite image from the "Low Key" assignment for the "People's Choice" award.  The guidelines for this assignment were to create a “low key” image, emphasizing dark tones while still attempting to retain detail in the image.   The assignment description explained that "low key" techniques are often used to impart an ominous or mysterious feeling to an image or used to convey drama or tension.  I recommended trying to keep the majority of tones in the lower half of the histogram, concentrating the tonal values in Zones III and IV, since zone III is considered the darkest zone where we can reasonably expect to see clearly visible detail in the image.


To vote for an image, simply select the image title in the "poll" attached at the top of this thread, and click "submit vote."  NOTE:  You need to be logged in to see the voting options.  Voting will end at midnight, Mountain Time (GMT-07:00) on Sunday, 4 April 2010.  

An apple



Waiting to be played.



Guitar



Black Angus



A Cow's World



bouquet



Sweet Chilis



Recados



Reflections



Red Wine



Bunge Soybean Plant - color



Bunge Soybean Plant - BW



Cabin



Hunting Centerpiece



Stained glass



King of the fireplace

Thank you to everyone that participated in this assignment.  Viewers are encouraged to respond to this thread describing why you like a particular image, or think it was particularly successful at meeting the guidelines of the assignment.

Keith

[Michele]

You know, once again, tough call on two of them that really got to me.  On the one hand, I love Black Angus because other than the little bit of brown in the eye with a hint of the photographer, the grass and the sky, the whole picture is simple black with a little light highlighting all the details of the cow's hair (?) with a cow lick to boot.

On the other hand, I am in awe of the Bunge Soybean Plant because of the colors that are so vivid in the low light.  I am not one hundred percent sure about the zone (but I am only learning about this stuff now), what I am certain of is that a factory or plant is usually very ugly to me.  This picture achieved to make something ugly into something magical and "X-Files" in a way.  How two stars came out of the light amazes me, (unless you used a filter, but you never mentioned it, so I don't know how you did that).

I think king of the fire place is very cool and bouquet has an antique feel to it that I love.  But I am really stuck on the first two.

Well, maybe with some more thinking, I'll know what to choose.  Just thought I would write it out.  Maybe that would have helped but alas, it did not.

[keithsnell]

And I like "Waiting to be played."  It's one of the two images in the submissions where I feel like the lighting and tonality come together with the subject and presentation to evoke an appropriate "mood" for the image.  The guitar looks lonely and forlorn, waiting to be played, and the mood is enhanced (if not "made") by the tonality of the image.  Good photography is one part technical skill, and one part "feeling."  That image has feeling.

[Michele]

Agreed.  I have no technical skills.   

Michèle

[keithsnell]

Agreed.  I have no technical skills.   

Michèle

I think your photography shows otherwise.   

[Dave]

I voted for 'waiting to be played'. Again it came down purely to aesthetics, this was the one I would most like to hang on my wall. The quality of the other images were all outstanding IMHO, and all adhered to the guidelines of the assignment very well.

[burzilai]

Im voting for waiting to be played coz it stirr up a mood, feeling...great job michelle.