These types of photos are considered silhouettes.  Often we think of silhouette photos happening only when there is a beautiful sunset.  But anytime the background is brighter than your subject, you have the opportunity for shooting silhouettes.

The key to shooting silhouettes is to take away the light.  Instead of focusing on adding light, let yourself exhale and take away light.  But let’s start at the beginning.

Photo Recipe for Shooting Silhouettes!

Ingredients:  Unless noted otherwise, the Aperture was f3.2 / I played with the Shutter Speed trying 1/60th or 1/100th of a second /  ISO 320

Directions:

1.  Find a space where the background can be brighter than your subject.  (for example; your kids playing in front of a bright window, a beautiful summer sunset, a dark tunnel in the bowels of Angkor Wat’s temples?  :)).

2.  Turn your camera to Manual mode.  Gotta do it!  No escaping it for this one, but trust me, you’ll be fine.

3.  Focus on your Subject.  Go ahead and take the shot.

4.  Look at your photo.  Are your subjects bright or dark?  We want them to become dark, like the kids in these photos.

5.  If your kids aren’t dark enough, adjust your Shutter Speed so it opens and closes faster.  For example, if your Shutter Speed is 1/80th of a second (or your camera may say 80), speed it up to 1/150th of a second.  If the kids still aren’t dark enough, speed it up even more.

6.  Quick fixes.  If your photo still isn’t looking like a silhouette, you may be to zoomed in on your kids.  Think of a sunset silhouette or these examples.  See how the kids don’t Fill the Frame?  There is lots of darkness around them.  With a beach sunset, the subjects are often small and the beach/sunset big.

7.  If you are close but want it darker, you can always take our photo into Lightroom and up the Blacks or Contrast.  These photos are all straight out of the camera, no post process done to them.  But sometimes I up the Blacks if it didn’t happen straight out of the camera.

One more tip

Make sure your kids have light behind them and not a dark object.  In this next photo, Blaze fell back laughing and the dark frame of the door is behind his head.  So it’s harder to see the outline of his silhouette.