Of the many different techniques that we photographers have, the use of the backlit silhouette is perhaps one of the most emotive. It has the power to transform a mundane scene into something powerful and beautiful. Ironically when we first get into photography, one of of the most often repeated mantras from non photographers is “don’t shoot into the sun” Listen to them and you will miss out on a huge range of potentially beautiful images.
Origins Of The Word Silhouette
Interestingly and as aside note, the origin of the word Silhouette, has nothing to do with light, it comes from an old French political term but these days it is universally accepted to mean a dark outline of a subject lit from behind.
Not Just The Sun
The most commonly perceived light source for photographing silhouettes is of course the sun, however we can use any bright light source, a flash gun, house lamp even a full moon, the secret is to make the subject go dark or black and bring out details in the back light.
One of the biggest problems of photographing silhouettes today is the fact that modern cameras are generally so good at getting the exposure right, that they tend to correct automatically any backlit scene, adding exposure and detail to the subject or foreground. So how can we counter this tendency for over correction? Well the simplest solution is to shoot manually.
Find An Interesting Subject
What we are looking for is an interesting subject with a strong direct light source behind it. For outdoor photography this will be most often but not exclusively be the sun.
When we frame our shot, we have several options, the first is to hid the light source directly behind the subject. Secondly we could use the light source as part of the composition. Lastly we could position the light source just out of frame.
Each has its own technical and compositional merits but can also throw up potential problems, for example with the light source in the frame we could get lens flare, causing a degradation of the image contrast.
Nail The Exposure
Once we have decided on our composition we now need to work out the exposure. This may seem tricky when photographing silhouettes, but there is one technique that works well in most cases and that is to expose for the sky. Rather than point the camera at our subject and take an exposure reading, we point at an area of the sky that will be in the final frame and measure the exposure from that.
From that reading, we then increase our exposure by one to one and a half stops. So if we are shooting at f11 we can open the aperture to f8. This generally will expose the sky perfectly and throw our subject into a deep silhouette. Of course this is not always 100% accurate and if you are finding it difficult to get your subject dark you can try to bracket the exposure.
This involves shooting a range of exposures around the correct exposure. For example if our metered exposure is 1/125 sec at f8 we would shoot at f5.6 to f11 in half stop units. Amongst this range you will almost certainly find the perfect silhouette.
Other Potential Issues
As well as getting the exposure right you may well find issues with focussing. If you find the autofocus is hunting for the correct exposure, line your autofocus point up with an edge between the silhouette and the backlit. If this fails considerer focussing manually.
Another tip is to shoot the images in RAW format. Not only will this give you a wider latitude to play with in post production it will also mean that you can set your white balance later, to get a more dramatic color look. This is particularly helpful when shooting sunset silhouettes, where the auto white balance can try to correct the yellow red color of the ambient light.
With Raw we can set this back to a more suitable setting. Try to avoid using filters when photographing silhouettes, the bright back light can induce flare especially with a filter added.
Composition Rules, OK?
Of course, even the most engaging silhouette will fall flat if the composition is poor. Some compositional things that you can look for include putting your subject and light source on opposing thirds, using reflections or ripples or water as leading lines or using a window or door as a framing device. Composition is as important to photographing silhouttes as the subject itself.
Silhouettes are wonderful, evocative shots that every photographer should have in their collection. At first shooting them might seem complicated but by following the steps in this article and of course by practicing and practicing some more you will soon learn how to tame the light and get the perfect silhouette.