Hey everyone!

I have a technical question about creating a silhouetted image. I know the basic premise of how to do it, (i.e. you must have light behind the subject) but I see it done pretty often where there doesn't seem to be STRONG backlighting behind the subject, such as in the early morning, etc.

I accidently did an image with silhouette one time, but now I can't remember what I did to do that, LOL! I think I was metering for the light behind the subject, resulting in the subject being underexposed.

My question is, if you wanted to create a silhouette for ANY situation,

1. would you meter for the light in the background,
2. recompose for the scene you are trying to capture
3. then take the shot using the settings you metered for the light in the background?

I always shoot in Manual mode if this helps. Thanks ya'll!

L.

Yes...you've pretty much got it, but if the background isn't bright enough, you'd have to over expose the background.

Hey Jennifer! Thanks so much, I saw an image on bobbi+mikes blog from a recent wedding, where they groom is golfing and it appears to be early morning. The sky is a pretty amber color, and I am wondering if you had to overexpose for the sky, would that blow out the colors in the sky?

Yes...it would. I couldn't open that like but I assume the light was bright enough in this case to just meter the sky. They may have also added some dark contrast to the image in PS.

I was having some trouble with the link to but if you just try to open it again and refresh the page, it works

Oh yeah...that sky is plenty bright.