“Creativity Boosters” is a series of photography tips designed to inspire and encourage you to try new shooting techniques.
Do you ever find yourself in a rut or shooting the same things over and over again?
Don’t let your photography get boring!
Use one of the creativity boosters to drive your eye to find new subjects.
The second in the series is about making silhouette photographs.
Silhouettes are by nature intriguing, dramatic, and somewhat mysterious since we only have a limited amount of information about the subject that is in total darkness.
Please click the images to view larger versions.
There are 3 ingredients to a great silhouette photograph:
1. Lighting
In order to render your subject in total darkness it must be backlit. The light will be directly in front of you and behind your subject making the sky brighter than the subject which falls into complete darkness.
2. Shape
Because the subject of the photograph is going to be completely black it needs to have an interesting shape to hold the viewers attention. It can’t just be a big black blob. It needs to have a well defined and interesting shape.
3. Colour
There needs to be great colour in the sky. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a dramatic sky since you have the silhouette to add interest to the image. But there needs to be wonderful colours like you get at sunrise or sunset.
Tips:
- Use the 3 step method for exposure. In this method you use the exposure lock button on your camera to meter on the sky. This will make the exposure correct for the sky and make your subject go completely black. Once you have locked in the exposure, you can focus on your subject, recompose, and shoot.
- If the sun is in your frame, you can create a beautiful sunburst by using a small aperture like f/22.
- Don’t try to pull out detail in the subject that is in silhouette in post processing.
- If there is water in your frame, you can use neutral density filter to enable longer exposures to make waves soften into a blur.
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Hi Anne ,
I stumbled upon your website by accident, but it turned out to be a treat . The pics seems exciting and fresh, plus you write in a lucid fashion. Congrats for all the hard work and i hope to read a lot of new content on this website. All the best for ur future endeavors .
PS : I really enjoyed the silhouettes blog post. 🙂
Hello Karanveer, thank you very much for your comments! I am so glad you have enjoyed the blog so far. I hope to see you again.
Hi Anne ,
thanks for those nice photographs. silhouettes are great.
Some new photographers like us will be greatly benefited if you give the details of shutter speed, aperture, ISO etc details with the photographs…
Prasenjit
Hello Prasenjit, I’m glad you enjoyed the post. The technical details vary quite a bit from photo to photo. For example, the first one of the three kids running in the water is ISO100, f/7.1, 1/125s whereas the bridge with the missing section is ISO100, f/22, 4.0s. The important factor is to meter for the sky, then set the aperture for the depth of field you need, and make sure you have a tripod to stabilize the camera. I hope that helps!
Hi thanks for your photography.and also I say thank for your tips of photography. Its very help ful for me to take the photographs.
You are very welcome Christ, I’m so glad you are finding it helpful.
Hello Anne,
Will it be possible for you to see some of my photos, just to see what you think about them as a feedback please? Sometimes it is difficult for one to judge himself. Another thing Anne please, do I need to use Photoshop or any other Editing software to include my name on each photo please?
Thank you Anne.
Hi Noel, I get many many requests to review people’s photos and unfortunately I cannot do them all. Instead I started a photo mentoring club to help my readers improve their photography. It is full right now, but if you are on my newsletter list you will be informed next time enrollment opens. You should be including your name in the meta-data of your photograph. You can do that with Lightroom when you import your photos and you can also use Lightroom to add a visible watermark. I hope that helps!
Hello Anne, Thank you for your reply, though being honest I did not understand you well regarding how one can include one’s name on the photograph. You named ‘Lightroom’. Is this a special software Anne please?. Thank you always. Noel.
Hi Noel, yes, “Adobe Lightroom”. You can order it on the internet.