The Silhouette
I think every photographer has a favorite trick up their sleeves, the one that they always come back to when warming up for a session or hitting a dead end. I find myself shooting a lot of silhouettes, so I guess it’s my thing now.
A silhouette is a solid, dark image of a subject against a brighter background. Silhouette pictures usually show the subject in profile. The first silhouettes originated in 1850s France as a cheaper alternative to having a portrait painted. These silhouettes were paintings, sketches, and paper cutouts.
As the definition suggests, silhouettes have very high contrast, which would result in more eye catching and dramatic photos. Moreover, by shooting only solid blackish shapes of the subjects, the identities of the people in the frames would remain unknown. This not only helps to create a more mysterious feeling for the viewers, but also protects the privacy of said people. I usually try to keep the subjects anonymous, since the appearance of human beings, or the hints of it, is good enough for me. More about this in my previous blog post, Anonymity in my street photography.
In my experience, there are a few things that we should consider for the silhouette to work.
First, the background needs to be clean, and very bright. It does not necessarily have to be completely white, but the brighter it is, the higher the contrast becomes, which is the main point of creating silhouettes. The cases where I shoot silhouettes the most are when I have huge blank highlight areas like the sky or the lakes; or when I shoot at night. Exposing for highlight in such situations often lead to the lack of light in the shadow, meaning deeper dark silhouettes.
If I had tried to meter according to the subject, the water surface would have been surely blown out. By exposing for highlight (in this case, the lake), the subject is now a clear black shape, and the reflection of the cloud stay intact. The frame is successfully filled. Notice how the person did not overlap with the cloud. Yay me!
Secondly, when shooting human subjects, I prefer the shots where the bodies are “well defined” so we can see the human shapes and gestures as clearly as possible. Without any details, it is hard to tell if a silhouette is of a human or not. If the outlines are not defined enough, the viewers will not be able to recognize the subjects. Besides, if your silhouette is a big chunk of black without any limbs, chances are the subjects are not doing anything interesting anyway.
The walking motion is clearly shown in this picture. The outline of his face and body are well defined and does not intersect with the shadows of the structures. This helps the viewers’ eyes to quickly recognize our human subject.
Thirdly, the silhouettes work better when being shot from very far away, or really close. In my case, I usually shoot them from a distance since I love working with the environment to create pleasing compositions or set the mood for the photographs. Many photographers on the other hand, they go up close, to emphasize more on the subjects’ gestures or facial expressions.
Shooting silhouettes is a pretty easy trick if you are used to looking for it and to metering for highlight. The technique behind is simple and the visual effects are often eye catching if done correctly. All that’s left to do is to create a story to keep the viewers staying on your photograph. In the last picture, I used silhouette, reflections and layers to create an illusion of a magic night firefly forest. Pretty relaxing is it not?
