One of the common pitfalls photographers fall foul of is showing too much in an image. When greeted with an explosion of focal points and a myriad of colours, it’s a challenge for the viewer to pick out a main subject in the scene.
This is where shooting a silhouette can really work for your photography. By casting a subject into shadow, the distracting colours disappear and the viewer can instead concentrate on the shape and form of the subject. Of course, shooting silhouettes is actually a creative use of underexposure - normally you would try and balance the exposure in an image so that detail can be seen throughout the frame. With silhouettes, you purposely underexpose to retain the detail of the sky, and cast the foreground subjects into inky black shapes.
This techniques isn’t suitable for every situation or subject. These images work best when there is an easily recognisable shape. Trees, churches, buildings and, of course, people work really well. The technique is also better to try when there is high-contrast lighting. So, sunrise and sunset are perfect!
Before:
A straightforward shot of this location reveals a flat, uninteresting scene.
Step One
Dial in your settings - Turn the mode dial to M, which stands for Manual. This will give you full control of the exposure settings. Depth of field is less important when shooting silhouettes, so an idea aperture is f/5. 6. Set a starting starting speed of 1/800sec and then take a few test shots, increasing the shutter speed until your subject falls into silhouette.
Increase the shutter speed unitl the subject turns to a silhouette!
Step Two
Fine tune composition - Spending a few moments adjusting your composition can elevate a good image into a great photo. A successful approach is to include more sky than foreground as the, the ground will be black and lack any detail. You could also try zooming in to fill the frame with your subject.
Zoom in to adjust composition and lose more of the foreground!
Step Three
Watch for flare - Shooting in high contrast lighting conditions, when the sun is low in the sky, can lead to flare being introduced to the frame. While flare can be used creatively to add atmosphere to the photo, too much will distract from the subject, so to reduce this risk, add a lens hood to the front of your optic.
Add a lens hood to reduce the risk of flare!
Step Four
Polish in post processing - Once you’re back at the computer, load your RAW file into Lightroom and enhance the image by boosting the Saturation by dragging the slider to the right. If needed, you can also make the silhouette darker by dragging the Blacks slider to the left.
Boost Saturation in Lightroom and darken the Blacks!
Final image:
By casting the subject into shadow, an arty image has been created and the viewers can focus on the shape and form of the subject.
Take it further!
Try using the silhouettes technique when capturing buildings, nature or portraits!
Buildings work great when cast as silhouettes!
Silhouettes offer a fresh approach when shooting portraits!
. digitalrev.com2017-5-11 03:00