Silhouette Photography

A silhouette is a dark image in which th subject is against the brighter light. The first silhouette originated in 1850s in France. Silhouette is an illustrated outline filled in with a solid color, usually black, and intended to represent the shape of an object without revealing any other visual details of an object.

Tips for shooting silhouette

1) In order to click a silhouette you'll need a backround to be brighter then the subject, the best time for silhouette shooting is early day time or late in day. Sunset is favorite among the silhouette creator photographers becouse the golden lights during sunset gives the amber touch to the image and mixture of blue, pinkish and yellow colour.

2) Make sure there should be no distraction such as trees, buildings between object and background light, that may cause the distraction in your silhouette.

3) First you have to take the position an then ask your subject to stand between you and the sun.

DSLR SETTINGS - ( SHOOT IN MANUAL)

APERTURE -

Set the f-stop for 7.5 or Higher, So that you can get large depth of field, all the details are in focus and to reduce the chromatic aberration that often comes while shooting into the sun.

SHUTTER SPEED -

The basic premise of silhouette is that the subject should be underexposed, So one should increase the shutter speed of the camera, the basic shutter speed can be 1/125 ( still subject) or 1/250 ( moving subject) depends on the light, If their is still overexposed subject go up from there to darken the photo.

ISO -

Try to keep ISO as low as possible, this can give a clear, soft and noise free touch to your image. It's ok to rise ISO slightly, but keep in mind that if you raise the ISO too much you might find the noise and grains in image.

By Niket Rana