How to Photograph a Silhouette

A silhouette is where your subject is mostly or completely dark and the light behind the subject is exposed correctly. Silhouettes are very easy to photograph.  

First, put your camera in Manual mode if you haven’t already done so.  This will help you to expose behind your subject rather than for your subject. If you are in automatic mode, make sure your flash is turned off.  

Next you need to place your subject with light behind them.  This can be a sky or if you are looking out from a building, cave or alleyway that will work too.  You will just need light behind them. Then expose properly for the light behind them.  If you are in auto mode you will want to point the camera at the brightest part of your picture, so it will meter for your light source rather than your subject. This will severely underexpose your subject.  Which is exactly what you want.  When looking through your viewfinder or on your screen if you are in live view mode, you will want to check your light meter.  Make sure it is reading 0, and you are not blowing out the sky or light source.  You can get away with underexposing quite a bit as long as you are not losing detail in your sky.

There are a few things to think about.  It helps to have a recognizable shape.  So, if you are photographing a person it helps if their limbs are visible.  The simpler the better! Don’t be afraid to increase the contrast in post processing.  You can even play around with the colors that you have captured to make your silhouettes stand out even more.  It helps to shoot in raw to really bring out those details. 

Try it out! This simple technique can really give you new possibilities with your photography.

Thanks for reading.

How to Add Fireflies to A Photo

Fireflies, lightning bugs, bioluminescent creatures of the night, (whatever you call them): they are fascinating creatures to catch and watch. Not to mention it is a staple of childhood! I remember staying up late and catching them as a child, and I love to watch my kids as they chase them all over the yard.  We used a pickle jar, and punched holes in the top of the lid.  It is easiest to catch them when they land on the ground!  They are hard to see, which is also part of the fun of catching them.  If you live in the Midwest, this is a MUST!  

However, in pictures they just don’t show up so well.  Not to mention it is not that easy to snap a shot when they are all lighting up.  In order to make that picture as magical as it is for your child you will need an overlay! That is how I have created these pictures. I used an overlay in photoshop and set the layer to SCREEN.

Then I hit ctrl/j to duplicate the layer as much as I want.  I use the shortcut ctrl/t to transform and adjust the size. Then I place them in varying areas and sizes to add depth and atmosphere. The closer they are to your camera the bigger and blurrier you will need to make them.  I have created my own shortcut in photoshop to add a Gaussian blur.  But you can get there by going to filter>blur> Gaussian blur, and then blur to your taste.  I also lowered the opacity on some to make them blend better.

Remember the rule of odds if you place them close together or in the jar. To read more about the rule of odds, go here. This adds visual interest and helps to move your eyes throughout the picture. 

I have made this overlay available for download for free! I added some noise to the overlay, because chances are if you are out catching lightning bugs it is going to be very low light. I had to increase my ISO to a very high number in order to capture anything and keep my shutter speed reasonable. Make sure to set the overlay to SCREEN. I hope you enjoy it! Please let me know if you do! Please share your pictures with me!  I would love to see what everyone comes up with!

Download the Firefly overlay here.

Thanks for reading!

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