How to Photograph Silhouettes in 8 Easy Steps

I normally talk of 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 best – or when put differently silhouette is a worth exploring.
Silhouettes arena wonderful way to convey drama, mystery, emotion and mood to the viewers of your photos and often jump call at a 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 adequate 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 prefer to be blackened out) before 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 arena lot of very technical descriptions getting around on how to take great silhouette shots that you might prefer to search but let me attempt to consume some basic steps that should get you the results you’re after. Au fond what we’re trying commotion is make your camera think that it’s the bright parts of the picture you're most concerned in.
Here’s how commotion it:
1. Choose a Strong Subject
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 flat 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.
2. Cut your Flash

If you've your camera in automatic mode your camera will probably prefer 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 Togolese Republic (basic – but I’ve seen a couple of attempted silhouette shots with the flash firing).
3. Get Your Light Right

When it bears on lighting your subject you’ll need to advance a lot what you’ve learnt about normal photography and think a bit backwards. Besides lighting the front of your subject, in silhouettes you need to ensure that there's cleaner shining from the background than the foreground of your shot – or to put it another way – you prefer to light the back of your subject besides the front. The perfect light for this is placing your subject ahead of a sunset or sunrise – but really any bright light will be able commotion the trick.
4. Frame your image

Frame your shot so you're shooting with your subject ahead of a nice plain, but bright background. Usually the best backgrounds will be a bright cloudless sky with the sun setting. You prefer to position the brightest light behind your subject (either so that they hide it about that its in the background somewhere).
5. Make silhouetted shapes distinct and uncluttered

If there's less matchable shape or object in the image that you’re attempting to silhouette, try to keep them separated. ie if you're silhouetting a tree and a person don’t have the person backup front of the tree or even leaning against it as it will merge them into one shape and as a result your viewers coulded shape is.
Also when framing you’ll probably prefer to photograph silhouetted people as profiles besides looking straight on. This means that more of their features (nose, mouth, eyes) are outlined and they're more expected to be recognized.
6. In Auto Mode Most modern digital cameras have automatic metering which are pretty good at sensing how to expose a photograph so that everything is well lit. The problem with this is that most cameras are so smart that they'll brighten your subject besides underexposing it to clog silhouette so you need to trick it. Most cameras calculate the exposure levels in auto mode when you push your shutter center down (concurrently that they focus). So point your camera at the brightest part of your picture and so press the shutter halfway down (do not let go of). Then move your camera back to frame your shot with the subject where you want it and so finish taking the shot. With most digital cameras this will result in a silhouetted subject. Effective what you’re doing is tricking your camera into thinking that the bright part of the image is the mid tone of it so that anything darker than it will be exposed as a nice dark shadow.
Some digital cameras also have ’spot’ or ‘centered’ metering modes that you are able to turn on which helps with the above technique as they'll set the metering on the central spot of your frame besides multiple spots. This means you are able to accurately tell your camera exactly which bit of the bright background you want it to set the exposure on.
7. Manual Mode If this technique doesn’t work and your camera has controls to allow manual exposure or exposure compensation you might like to try some of her own settings. The great thing about digitalin that you can experiment to your hearts content until you get the result you’re after.
A simple way to start using manual mode is to take the shutter speed and aperture that it suggests in automatic mode and to start from there. If in auto mode your subject is too light (ie you need to arrive darker) stop down the shutter speed a stop or two and see what impact that's. Use the ‘bracketing’ technique that I described in my previous tip on sunrises and sunsets to clog variety of shots at slightly different exposures.
8. Focusing

Innermost cases you’ll want the subject which is silhouetted to be the thing that is focused most crisply. This can mean that the process described in point 4 can be a bit tricky as pushing your shutter half way down to get the metering right also means that you’ll center that spot in the background. To break this you are able to use two strategies. Firstly if your camera has manual centering you might prefer to try that. Pre focus your shot before you meter your shot.
The other strategy is to use Aperture to maximize your depth of field (the amount of your image that's focused). Set a small aperture (ie a larger number) to increase the depth of field – this means you’re more expected to have a sharper foreground and background in your shots.
One last tip on Silhouettes – while a total silhouette with a nice crisp and black subject can be a powerful shot, also consider the partial silhouette where some detail of your subject is left. Sometimes a touch of light on them makes them slightly more cubic and ‘real’. This is the great thing about bracketing your shots as it 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 previous Silhouettes Assignment in our forums to share your work.