Silhouettes are sort of the reverse of most other techniques used to make your subject singled out in that usually your subject becomes the darkest part of the photograph. I feel this method explores more of the shape of the main subject than anything else. A silhouette proudly shows the outline of the main subject of the photograph without distracting the viewer with any unnecessary color or details. It is a deliberate and direct approach to force the subject to be “singled out”. Another great property that comes along with under exposing your main subject is that the background can show much more vibrant colors than it normally would with a “properly” exposed foreground subject, such as in the sunset silhouettes shown below. The last point I’d like to make about photographing a silhouette is that it can be a tool to use when there isn’t otherwise enough light to take a normally lit photo of your subject. Early morning and late evening are perfect times to make silhouettes but as a couple of my examples show they can be created at any time with some creative camera settings.
I have created silhouettes of many different things in nature but some of the most common for me are landscapes and specifically trees. Trees are great, large, immovable objects that come in thousands of varieties and shapes. One of my favorite was the B&W photo of the peach tree below. I had driven by this peach orchard hundreds of times near my home in southern New Jersey and always thought to myself “that would make such a great photo in the winter with fog”. One crisp morning in early February I woke up to see the perfect late morning foggy conditions needed to make the photo I had been imagining for years. I decided that would be the morning and I drove out to the orchard of peach trees. The morning had all the ingredients required to make the photo I had in my mind, leafless and creepy trees, plus thick dense fog. A few frames later and some added contrast in post processing and I ended up with a spooky, looming, dark tree outline against a bright white sky. This was one of the first silhouettes I was truly proud of as a budding nature photographer.
Another subject that can work well for silhouettes are birds (I like taking pictures of them if you haven’t noticed, haha). Some birds make for better silhouetted shapes than others and as always require a little luck to get the bird in just the right spot. As I mentioned, early morning and late evening can be the perfect opportunity to experiment with a few silhouettes because some times there is just not enough light to do anything else. It can also be fun for the viewer to try to identify the bird based solely on it’s shape and nothing else, which can be a challenge to even a seasoned birder, of which I am not.
Below are a few examples of silhouette photos that I’m quite fond of. Thanks for stopping by, and next week will be the last of the “Singled Out” series ending with “space”, which is my favorite technique.
On a foggy morning the dark silhouette of the leafless peach tree against the bright white sky does a perfect job of making the subject become singled out.
Again, the dark silhouette of the single tree does the trick. It becomes the first thing the viewer's eye goes to.
Another tree example - hey they are easy to silhouette so I've got a few to share.
An Osprey perched on a branch becomes the perfect silhouette against the nice orange glow of a sunset. The fact that it is the one vertical thing in this photograph also helps make the bird become singled out.
Another tree silhouette, but this time it's the moon lighting up the sky and you can see a few stars too.
This silhouette is helped by the snow on the ground. If there was no snow, the bottom half of the tree would most likely blend in and only the top would be the silhouette.
Wildlife Photography Blog
Nice. I think I’ve seen some of these before when casually going through some of your galleries, but they are really cool shots and I enjoyed reading your article as well. Nicely done.