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Just imagine you are out and about and a statue or a figure catches your eye, you decide to take a picture of it, but when you view it on your camera screen it is in complete blackness but the sky has been captured perfectly.
This happens because your camera’s light meter was fooled by the bright background making the foreground subject appear almost black.
You get home and download the pictures that you have taken that day to your computer and come across the figure that your shot earlier and are about to delete it, but when you take a good look at it you decide that this image is quite pleasing and creative and even worth showing your friends.
Silhouettes are a really satisfying way to take pictures when done correctly and in this article I will show you how.

What subjects make the best silhouettes?
Keep it simple, buildings, pylons, people, birds, or anything with a good clear shape will produce more interesting effects. Try and also look for uncluttered backgrounds otherwise the image will merge with other elements.

How do you achieve the best results?
Switch your camera to spot, partial or centre weighted metering. If you don’t know how to do this look at your cameras instruction booklet.
Point the metering area at the brightest part of the sky to take an exposure reading then press the AE-L button on your camera to lock this setting, recompose your shot to include your subject and take the picture.
You might want to play around with the exposure compensation button and try different settings, start with +1 for example.
If you only have a basic camera and are unable to change any settings then try taking a picture of a shape or statue with mostly bright sky, and see what effects you get.

As I always say experiment, that’s the beauty of digital photography, if you don’t like it delete it.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 21st, 2007 at 8:00 am and is filed under Photo Tips and Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.