Photography | Captain Logophile

BEHIND THE LENS!

I normally talk about the importance of using a flash when taking shots into the sun to give sufficient light to add features to your subject but there are also times when making your subject featureless apart from their outline against a bright background can be most effective or when in other words silhouette is a worth exploring.  

Silhouettes are a wonderful way to convey drama, mystery, emotion and mood to the viewers of your photos and often stand out in an album because of the combination of their simplicity but also the story that they convey. 

Almost any object can be made into a silhouette, however some are better than others. Choose something with a strong and recognizable shape that will be interesting enough in its two dimensional form to hold the interest of those viewing your image. Silhouettes can’t draw on the colors, textures and tones of subjects to make them appealing –so the shape needs to be distinct.

If you have your camera in automatic mode your camera will probably want to use its flash which will ruin the silhouette. Basically you want as little light on the front of your subject as possible –so the flash has to go.

Instead of lighting the front of your subject, in silhouettes you need to ensure that there is more light shining from the background than the foreground of your shot –or to put it another way –you want to light the back of your subject rather than the front. The perfect light for this is placing your subject in front of a sunset or sunrise –but really any bright light will be able to do the trick.

Frame your shot so you are shooting with your subject in front of a nice plain, but bright background. Usually the best backgrounds will be a bright cloudless sky with the sun setting. You want to position the brightest light source behind your subject (either so that they hide it or so that its in the background somewhere).

Although the most dramatic colors usually occur on the horizon where the Sun is rising or setting, it’s also possible for the best colors to be at the opposite horizon, or even straight up in the sky! It really depends on the clouds, so to ensure you capture the best colors, keep looking around while the Sun is setting or rising.