how to: take a sihouette photo

goldilocksandmy3bears

Can someone explain to me how to take a sihouette photograph. Also, Where do I focus on? - the light source or the subject? If you have taken any of these types of pictures can you post them here too.
Thank you
Courtney

sweet caroline

Check out my avatar. I placed the flash on the stairs and pointed it towards the back wall. I had to increase the contrast in processing to fully get the effect. So, there's an idea of what you can do with a single flash. Others will be able to give much help.

Caroline

Sam

Expose for the light. Focus on the subject, unless you want the background in focus. This is your decision. Experiment.

Sam

pwp

I've had some luck with my maternity photos in placing the softboxes behind a muslin or gauzy backdrop, and dialing the shutter speed up. It makes for a beautiful profile of their form, and requires only minimal post-processing. Experiment a lot!

goldilocksandmy3bears

Thank you all for your help....:D

Toshido

i have actually recently played with some pseudo silohouette photos I took of my wife while she was pregnant.
The photos had her in a dark room with a bright window behind her, so exposure was pretty simple to get close to what I wanted. But light still found its way to the edges of he body and ruined a sharp silohuette.
Adjusting the black point fixed that though.

So if you can't set all the lighting to get it perfect in camera then black point adjustmemtns might get you the rest of the way.

Scrubs

As suggested expose for the light behind the subject -
The brighter the better. Here is one of mine.