Contre Jour, is it the thinking mans' bokeh?

Would someone please explain what low key lighting is? Because my understanding of the term seems to coincide with more than a fair percentage of the images shown here. Just because the subject matter is backlit doesn't make it contre jour. You also need higher levels of contrast, emphasizing shape at the expense of tone and/or colour. Correct me if I'm wrong.
 
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Why not both ? (contre jour and bokeh)

990403617_5iZWo-XL.jpg


(shot with an M, BTW).
 
Wikipedia (for what it's worth) defines low-key lighting as a subset of (or a common effect of) contre jour (as a specific lighting situation). Low-key lighting is when the contrast ratio is 8:1, instead of 16:1 which is a silhouette:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contre-jour

A couple of photography textbooks I have laying around, such as Bruce Warren's _Photography_ (2nd ed.), do not even mention "contre joure" (not even in the glossary), just sticking with "back lighting" throughout. I'm no expert, by any means, but I thought contre jour simply was "back lighting". How strongly you want to render the "increased contrast" and "loss of details" is a decision, but the situation itself will usually produce high contrast and a loss of detail (either at the dark or light end of the spectrum). Perhaps I've been mistaken.

Ezzie said:
Would someone please explain what low key lighting is? Because my understanding of the term seems to coincide with more than a fair percentage of the images shown here. Just because the subject matter is backlit doesn't make it contre jour. You also need higher levels of contrast, emphasizing shape at the expense of tone and/or colour. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Click to expand...
 
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