Photographing Silhouettes
Someone recently asked me via email for some tips on photographing silhouettes. Here was my response.
- Focus on the edge of the silhouette. Your camera’s autofocus will find it hard to lock the focus if you aim in the centre of the silhouette.
- Shoot on manual. You’ll need a faster shutterspeed than your camera’s automatic setting would choose.
- Try to get the silhouette against an uncluttered background.
- Try backlighting the silhouette – having a light directly behind the subject, pointing towards the camera, but masked by the silhouette. It can give a nice halo-like effect on the edges of the silhouette.
- If you’re outdoors, sunset is the perfect time of day to capture silhouettes.
For more detailed advice see this guide on how to photograph silhouettes.
I’m submitting this to the Problogger "How to" group writing project. There’s already 230 submissions on every topic imaginable, check em out.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 21st, 2006 at 11:53 pm. It is filed under Uncategorized and tagged with advice, silhouttes.
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haha love that one of me!
Some great examples there Dan!
I liked the tip about going to the edge of the silhouette – sometimes at gigs when I’m trying for a silhouette I’ll be desperately searching for something white (or with a bit of contrast) in the same line as the shot so I can lock the centre point focus and recompose.
and I should add that sometimes a flick to manual focus is in order (and when i think about it – that’s probably the simplest solution!)
I love the bottom picture, with the girl’s hair! very neat!
Beautiful examples, I’m definitely going to try out these tips. Our how-to is up as well if you’d like to check it out!!
Great tips. I’m just putting together a post linking to all the photography-related How Tos in the Problogger group writing project.
You might be interested in my contribution, How To Take Great Photos Of Children.
Also, I’m just down the coast from you in Kiama!
Very good site. Thank you!!!
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