That title makes it look like I know what I am doing, I do in some sense but my techniques are all self discovered. I did a bit of search for this blog when Gerry asked me to be a guest blog on the subject.
There are many types of back lighting, but there are two types that concerns most wild life photographers, Silhouette’s and Halo of Light. I must say that the technique I use probably break a lot of photography rules.
It works for me.
Silhouette is when the subject is completely blackened out. This is usually done by having the animal agaisnt a pretty sunset. There are how ever other ways too achieved this.
I have found great pleasure in getting behind the animals on the move, they kick up a lot of dust and this becomes the back drop on to which I photograph the silhouette.
It adds drama and mood to an image the a pretty sunset cannot do.
Halo of Light, this is when your subject is outlined by light. This is usually easiest to do when your subject is fury, the hair catches the sunlight.
To capture the Halo of light on a fury animal, I use a technique I learnt while trying to photograph animals at night with a white light. As I dont use a flash. What I do is meter off the brightest part of the image and then under expose by a whole 2 stops. I did this at night to increase my shutter speed so to reduce blur.
The results were the my blacks where pitch black and my highlights where just right. This works will with a halo type image as the ring of light around the subject is pronounced and make it pop a little. If you expose correctly the white halo tends to be over exposed and blown and this is the punch of the photo and has to be correctly exposed.
I dont like shooting straight in to the sun, Halo’s (not the same as above – this is a circular white bubble also known as lens fare) are created which even thou it can be found as a Photoshop tool, it is not appealing.
This should be your number one concern when photographing a back lit subject. This is not a relevant problem when silhouetting against dust. There is also an issue with safety here, be very careful when shooting into the sun a telephoto lens can magnify the rays of light doing damage to your lens or worse you eyes.
When metering meter off the brightest part of the image in front of you, this is the usual technique for silhouettes. I like to play with my photography, with digital it is possible to do this.
Break those rules occasionally!
Regards,
Etienne Oosthuizen
Etienne’s Links
- Website & Blog: Photographic Africa
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