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How To Shoot Silhouettes - 2/4/08

Add mystery and drama to your portfolio when you learn the art of the silhouette

This Article Features Photo Zoom

The explanation for making a silhouette is simple: put your subject in front of a light source and expose for the light source, making the subject underexposed and black, leaving only its graphic outline. But to do this effectively takes a little more practice. First of all, pick a subject with a strong shape-something that, without detail, will still make for a strong center of attention-and make sure it's clear of any other dark shapes or objects that can obstruct its outline. Next you've got to get the light right. Sunsets are the perfect place to start because they can add an element of color to compliment the graphic nature of the shot. Make sure to turn your flash off and that there's not much frontal light hitting your subject. Even with front light, you can still make a strong silhouette-you've just got to underexpose even more. Manual exposure controls come in handy here, but it can be done fully auto too. Simply set exposure compensation for -1 or -2, meter for the sky (or whatever the background), and set the exposure by pressing the exposure lock or holding the shutter release halfway. With a sunset sky, for example, the correct exposure for the sky may be ƒ/8 at 1/60th of a second. At ƒ/11, the sky will still be a nice deep color, and you're almost guaranteed to eliminate any detail in the shadow side of your subject. Once you've got that figured out, you can move on to partial silhouettes where key bits of detail remain visible and can shed more light-no pun intended-on the subject.

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