To understand this picture, you must first understand the concepts of high-key and low-key lighting.

With no complication, in simple words, when the large portion of a picture is bright, its a high-key shot. If its the opposite of that – if the large portion of a picture is dark – then its a low-key shot.

Essentially, I took both the ideas and merged them together. The picture was taken against an open window. One of them was standing directly against the window light and the other was standing just behind the window, against the wall. I exposed the shot for the window light. This automatically makes everything inside the studio – the wall against which she was standing – dark. However, since she’s standing so close to the edge of the window, it gives a nice rim light on the face, for the person standing on the right side. The person standing on the left becomes a silhouette. These kind of shots work the best in black and white.

I basically had the Ghatam lifted to the height of the artist’s head. Then, having a soft box just above his head I lit his face. This soft box was completely feathered away from the background so the light falls only on his face and not on the Ghatam. To get the silhouette of the Ghatam, I had a bare bulb flash pointed onto the backdrop, behind the Ghatam.

Looking back at the picture now, I feel I should have used a reflector from the bottom, to fill the shadows on his face. Somehow, the thought didn’t occur to me then and as a result, you notice the shadows under his eyes.