How to Photograph Silhouettes in 8 Easy Steps

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How to Photograph Silhouettes in 8 Easy Steps
Image by Peter de Krom
I normally talk about the importance of using a flash when takingshots into the sun to give sufficient light to add features to yoursubject but there are also times when making yoursubject featureless apart from their outline against a brightbackground 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 standout in an album because of the combination of their simplicity but alsothe story that they convey. I love them because they don’t give theviewer of a clear picture of everything but leave part of the image upto their imagination to wonder about.
The basic strategy you’ll need to employ in taking silhouette shotsis to place your subject (the shape you want to be blacked out) infront of some source of light and to force your camera to set itsexposure based upon the brightest part of your picture (the background)and not the subject of your image.
In doing this your subject will be under exposed (and very dark, if not black).
There are a lot of very technical descriptions going around on howto take great silhouette shots that you might want to look up but letme attempt to run through some basic steps that should get you theresults you’re after. In essence what we’re trying to do is make yourcamera think that it’s the bright parts of the picture you are mostinterested in.
Here’s how to do it:
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Image by No Pip No!
1. Choose a Strong Subject
Almost any object can be made into a silhouette, however some arebetter than others. Choose something with a strong and recognizableshape that will be interesting enough in its two dimensional form tohold the interest of those viewing your image. Silhouettes can’t drawon the colors, textures and tones of subjects to make them appealing -so the shape needs to be distinct.
2. Turn off your Flash
If you have your camera in automatic mode your camera will probablywant to use its flash which will ruin the silhouette. Basically youwant as little light on the front of your subject as possible - so theflash has to go (basic - but I’ve seen a few attempted silhouette shotswith the flash firing).
 
3. Get Your Light Right
When it comes to lighting your subject you’ll need to throw out alot of what you’ve learnt about normal photography and think a littlebackwards. Instead of lighting the front of your subject, insilhouettes you need to ensure that there is more light shining fromthe background than the foreground of your shot - or to put it anotherway - 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 sunsetor sunrise - but really any bright light will be able to do the trick.
4. Frame your image
Frame your shot so you are shooting with your subject in front of anice plain, but bright background. Usually the best backgrounds will bea bright cloudless sky with the sun setting. You want to position thebrightest light source behind your subject (either so that they hide itor so that its in the background somewhere).
 
5. Make silhouetted shapes distinct and uncluttered
If there is more than one shape or object in the image that you’reattempting to silhouette, try to keep them separated. ie if you aresilhouetting a tree and a person don’t have the person stand in frontof the tree or even leaning on it as it will merge them into one shapeand as a result your viewers could be confused about what the shape is.
Also when framing you’ll probably want to photograph silhouettedpeople as profiles rather than looking straight on. This means thatmore of their features (nose, mouth, eyes) are outlined and they aremore likely to be recognized.
 
6. In Auto Mode
Most modern digital cameras have automatic metering which are prettygood at sensing how to expose a photograph so that everything is welllit. The problem with this is that most cameras are so smart that theywill light up your subject instead of underexposing it to get asilhouette so you need to trick it. Most cameras work out the exposurelevels in auto mode when you push your shutter half way down (at thesame time that they focus). So point your camera at the brightest partof your picture and then press the shutter halfway down (don’t let go).Then move your camera back to frame your shot with the subject whereyou want it and then finish taking the shot. With most digital camerasthis will result in a silhouetted subject. In effect what you’re doingis tricking your camera into thinking that the bright part of the imageis the mid tone of it so that anything darker than it will be exposedas a nice dark shadow.
Some digital cameras also have ’spot’ or ‘centered’ metering modesthat you can switch on which helps with the above technique as theywill set the metering on the central spot of your frame rather thanmultiple spots. This means you can accurately tell your camera exactlywhich bit of the bright background you want it to set the exposure on.
 
Image by muha
 
7. Manual Mode
If this technique doesn’t work and your camera has controls to allowmanual exposure or exposure compensation you might like to try some ofyour own settings. The beauty of digital is that you can experiment toyour hearts content until you get the result you’re after.
A simple way to start using manual mode is to look at the shutterspeed and aperture that it suggests in automatic mode and to start fromthere. If in auto mode your subject is too light (ie you need to makeit darker) stop down the shutter speed a stop or two and see whatimpact that has. Use the ‘bracketing’ technique that I described in myprevious tip onsunrises and sunsets to get a variety of shots at slightly different exposures.
 
8. Focusing
In most cases you’ll want the subject which is silhouetted to be thething that is in focus most crisply. This can mean that the processdescribed in point 4 can be a little tricky as pushing your shutterhalf way down to get the metering right also means that you’ll focus onthat spot in the background. To get around this you can use twostrategies. Firstly if your camera has manual focusing you might wantto try that. Pre focus your shot before you meter your shot.
The other strategy is to use Aperture to maximize your depth offield (the amount of your image that is in focus). Set a small aperture(ie a larger number) to increase the depth of field - this means you’remore likely to have a sharper foreground and background in your shots.
One last tip on Silhouettes - while a total silhouettewith a nice crisp and black subject can be a powerful shot, alsoconsider the partial silhouette where some detail of your subject isleft. Sometimes a touch of light on them makes them slightly more threedimensional and ‘real’. This is the beauty of bracketing your shots asit will leave you with total and partial silhouettes to choose form.
Once you’ve tried some of these tips you might like to head to our previousSilhouettes Assignment in our forums to share your work.
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