Shooting silhouettes adds a feeling of mystery and adventure to photography. In this post, I will give you some tips to take awesome silhouette pictures.
All the images in this post were taken at the Bear Rocks Preserve in the Dolly Sods Wilderness. Bear Rocks offers a vast open sky as a background for your subject.
Here Are 5 Helpful Tips
Tip #1: Use A Subject
For these photos, I used my friend Bryce as my subject.
Using people as subjects for silhouettes to be my favorite, but you could get creative with the scenery around you.
Prioritize having negative space surrounding your subject so you can make out the details of your subject.
Tip #2: Capture the Subjects Movement
When shooting silhouettes, the shutter speed should be fast enough to freeze the subject’s movement.
Utilize your camera’s burst mode to find the best composition.
Tip #3: Try to Keep Sun Out of Frame
Capturing the sun in the image can cause highlight clipping, so here are a few options to avoid this.
Create the composition, so the sun is just out of the frame to avoid clipping.
Try placing the sun behind the subject if you cannot get it out of the frame.
Tip #4: Shoot From A Low Angle
Shooting the subject from the knees or lower can help emphasize your background more; this can allow more negative space around the subject resulting in better details.
Tip #4: Understand Your Exposure
You will want the shutter speed to be from 1/150 to 1/250.
Always keep ISO at 100.
The aperture can vary from f/5.6 – f/11 depending on your subject and how much of the picture you want in full detail.
Adjust the exposure compensation dial to no more than -0.7 to help make the image darker if needed.
Tip #5: Bring Out the Contrast
Once you begin editing your silhouette images, there are a few things you want to avoid.
Stay away from filters that remove contrast and decrease shadows. Instead, increase the shadows manually in post editing.
Conclusion
After getting these tips down, silhouette pictures will become less intimidating and more fun to capture.
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