Photo How To

Images captured in silhouette convey a super dramatic look that's impossible to ignore, whether you're shooting portraits, landscapes, nature subjects and more. Today's quick video provides a step-by-step breakdown from start to finish so that you can get started today.

Instructor Steve Selman is an accomplished pro who specializes in editorial, fine art, and fashion photography. He's been employing eye-popping silhouettes in his craft for over a decade, and says, "today I want to crack the door on how I create them."

Selman explains the concept like this: "I understand it by exposing a photo with a lighting source that is greater in the background of a scene than in the foreground." Your source of illumination can be the sun or the moon when shooting in the field, or a simple indoor lighting setup that you can mimic at home.

In other words, it's all about backlighting your subject, and Selman begins by unrolling a white seamless and then using a light on either side of this background, both pointing inwards and slightly down, to make this plain background really bright. You'll see the type of gear he suggests.

Selman includes recommendations for camera settings, depending upon prevailing light and the intensity of your source of illumination. Once you're all set up it's time to concentrate on the subject, and this is where your sense of artistry comes into play. Selman puts it like this: "I like to achieve what I call "rim light" on the subject which is the refractive light emanating from the background on the perimeter of my subject."

He also illustrates a few key considerations for composition and posing, one of which is to note how a subject creates negative spaces within their body. "What I mean are spaces between arms, neck, legs, and other parts of their body."

Camera-to-backdrop distance is another key consideration. Selman explains that, "The closer the subject is to the light plane the more light will emanate onto the subject." Conversely, "the further forward the subject is from the background the more contasty and darker the subject will be."

Selman provides a few more important tips and techniques for creating what he calls "reveal and conceal." Once you're done watching pay a visit to his very interesting YouTube channel.

We also recommend watching the earlier tutorial we featured with a notable British pro who explains how to use Exposure (EV) compensation to control highlights and shadows for perfectly balanced landscape and nature photographs every time.