Silhouettes
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. I love them because they don’t give the viewer of a clear picture of everything but leave part of the image up to their imagination to wonder about.
The basic strategy you’ll need to employ in taking silhouette shots is to place your subject (the shape you want to be blacked out) in front of some source of light and to force your camera to set its exposure 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 how to take great silhouette shots that you might want to look up but let me attempt to run through some basic steps that should get you the results you’re after. In essence what we’re trying to do is make your camera think that it’s the bright parts of the picture you are most interested in.
1. Silhouettes are distinctive shaped without detail against a light background.
2. Composition is, therefore, vitally important since there is less information available.
3. Metering is best done using partial or spot metering from ,for instance, the sky area but not too near the sun. Press and hold the shutter button half way down so that the light reading is held. The focus is also held.
4. Dawn, Dusk and pre-dawn and post-dusk will give good results, with lovely sky colours.
5. Subjects that make good silhouettes are
5.1 Churches e.g. spires and towers and weather vanes.
5.2 Trees on ridge lines.
5.3 Fences and gates.
5.4 Birds on the water or flying.
5.5 People.
5.6 Dogs.
5.7 Horses.
5.8 Cattle.
5.9 Other animals.
6. Other links are
6.1 https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/silhouette-photography/
6.2 https://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-photograph-silhouettes/
