Take photos of silhouettes and shadows
This assignment is not just taking shadow/silhouettes. Each Photo has to a tell a story. Think of how you pose or take your subject matter. Will help the image to tell a story.
Upload all of them to Flickr
Email me a link of the photos.
Bring in 10 images for the critique (Flickr)
Then upload the 75 images that you do not use for crit.
Due/Crit - Sept 30, 2019
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tips
In order to capture a clear silhouette, you’ll need the background to be brighter than your subject. The best way to do this is to shoot at the beginning or the end of the day. The optimum time to shoot a silhouette is when the sun is low in the sky – either when it is rising or setting. Sunsets are a favorite among photographers who regularly create spectacular silhouettes, but you can also shoot a decent silhouette against a blue sky.Shout in Manual
Set your aperture (f-stop) for 8.0 or higher for two reasons:
1) You want a large depth of field, so that all of the details are in focus;
2) To reduce the amount of chromatic aberration that often comes with shooting into the sun.
Increase your shutter speed. The basic premise of a silhouette is that you want to underexpose your subject. (I don’t know about you, but for a long time, I got underexposure and overexposure mixed up. The way I remember which is which is to think about the word, under, in underexposure.
In this case, under(expose) means not enough (light).
So underexposed = too dark and overexposed = too bright.
If you increase your shutter speed and your photo is still not dark enough, raise it even more. (Start at 1/125 if the subject is still and 1/250 if the subject is moving, and go up from there to darken your photo.)
Keep your ISO as low as possible. As the sun sets, you might be tempted to increase your ISO. It’s okay to raise it slightly, but keep in mind that if you raise it too high, you might find that your photographs have too much noise (or grain) in them. And it will be really obvious with all the black in your images. Having said that, it really depends on your camera: with some cameras, you’ll see noise at an ISO of 800; others don’t show any noise until you get up to an ISO of 2500 or more. If you’re not sure how your camera will perform, keep your ISO as low as possible.
Trick your camera because you want to shoot a silhouette, you’ll need to trick your camera by metering off the sky (manual then shoot straight on), not the subject. Start by pointing your camera at the brightest part of your frame – but not directly into the sun – and press the shutter halfway down. Then, while you’re holding the shutter halfway down, recompose your image and take the photo.
Bracketing
What is bracketing? Bracketing is when your camera takes a series of photos (generally three): the shot you’ve metered for, one shot that’s one stop over what you’ve metered for, and one shot that’s one stop under what you’ve metered for. In other words, it’s taking the shot you dialed in, a shot that’s slightly underexposed, and a shot that’s slightly overexposed. (Refer to your camera manual for how to access bracketing on your particular camera. Generally, you can select bracketing through your camera menus, but it also might be set up as a button on the back of your camera.)
Bracketing is really helpful, particularly when taking a silhouette shot, because it gives you three options to choose from. Chances are good that one of the three shots will produce a nearly total silhouette (meaning the subject is almost black), and the other shots may be partial silhouettes where some of the detail of your subject is visible. (Some people actually prefer partial silhouettes because they can see some of the details of the subject.)
Comments
Post a Comment