Photography - Create a Silhouette

A silhouette is a very basic image, stripped of many details, but used right and with the proper technique it can create eye catching images that can last for ever. A good time to practice your silhouette shots is around sunset, this is because whilst the sun is low in the sky it lights up backgrounds but keeps foreground lighting to a minimum.

Position

Position is key with these types of shots. For the best silhouettes you should place your subject directly between you and your light source. Always keep in mind that if your subject is to one side or too far away, you run the risk of light creeping in to shot.
Posing

Always take time to set up the pose with your subject and this is where you make or break the shot. Try and have a clear end result in your mind and work to it. If you are taking a silhouette of a person try and get enough profile to show that it is a person. The need for profile detail becomes higher because you have stripped certain details away that would otherwise inform the viewer what your subject is. Looking at the silhouette of the back of a head is not as easily apparent as looking at a side on profile that we all know and recognize.

Exposure

Exposure is not as easy to explain but by using a couple of guidelines you can soon be on your way to getting that shot you are hoping for. Since I always shoot manual I will explain from that stand point but you can easily adapt to most shooting modes.

For an example I will use shooting a profile of a face, the background I will use a sunset to keep it simple for me to explain. Assuming that I have the model in position and the posing is correct I would begin to set my exposure. Using a medium to high ISO and a slightly wide lens, I would spot meter for the sky behind my subject. Because I want as mush focus as possible I would settle for an F stop of 16 or more and I would use my shutter speed to control the exposure. What I am aiming to do is expose perfect for the main background feature, the sky in this example and under expose anything else. After taking a test shot I would review the image on my LCD. Even though I exposed for the sky I would use the intended silhouette as a gauge for my exposure settings. If the silhouette was too light all I would do is decrease the shutter speed by one stop, I would keep doing this until I found the slowest shutter speed with the darkest silhouette.

You need to be a little methodical about this because by using a faster shutter speed to get the perfect silhouette, in turn you will also start under exposing the sky. This is the reason for doing it step by step, you should be able to find a happy medium where you have both the silhouette and a nice background, even if it is slightly under exposed.

As I always say at the end of my blogs…

Remember photography is more about experiment then following guides word for word. Listen, read and watch how people do things then adapt them to your own style of shooting.

Phil Green

www.imageandeye.co.uk