Trying to achieve low-key photography with sony a6000 + kit lens

[Hummingbird]

Hi, this is my first attempt at low-key photography with sonyA6000 + kit lens. 

I found a very dark corner in my house where there was a black wall. The lights were off, so I used flash to illuminate the object. 

The wall was glossy, so I photoshopped the bouncing light out of the image and tweaked the exposure so that the backdrop was completely black. 

The leaves were also naturally green but I changed them to red just for fun. Please tell me your thoughts    

Also, has anyone achieved low-key photography with A6000 + kit lens without flash? 

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[Hummingbird]

My second attempt... ?

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[Thad E Ginathom]

How low-key does low-key have to be? I like both, but I prefer the highlight in the first photo.

[Hummingbird]

Ideally, I wanted to achieve something that seemed like it was coming out from the shadows. 

I am not sure if my photos achieve that effect. How could I improve the lighting so that there's more 

dimensionality to the subject? 

[Chrissie]

3 hours ago, Hummingbird said:

How could I improve the lighting so that there's more 

dimensionality to the subject? 

Interesting subject!

From what I gather from this article, lighting the object from the side seems to be one key ingredient.

[Hummingbird]

On 6/26/2019 at 5:57 PM, Chrissie said:

Interesting subject!

From what I gather from this article, lighting the object from the side seems to be one key ingredient.

That was really helpful! I took your advice and was able to come up with something like this  

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[SingingSabre]

Chrissie beat me to it.

Dimensionality is usually from being lit from an angle.

When I've run workshops in the past, I've taken something and just photographed it from every angle with a single light. Straight on, 15, 25, 45, 60, 90° angles, totally backlit, etc. It really gives an idea of how light falls off something.

If too much light is spilling from the source, you can often fashion anything into a barn door to block it where you don't want it to go.

Your results look great so far. It's nice to see more shadowy compositions.