Silhouette: shadowed contour: an outline of somebody or something filled in with black or a dark color on a light background, especially when done as a likeness or work of art

Is the creating of silhouettes, a lost art, or just an endangered species?

I love shooting silhouettes and made my first attempt about 1973.  I enjoy using nature, man-made objects and occasionally people as my central subjects.

Mixed in with the work of most photographers, especially nature photographers, especially fine art nature photographers, it used to be (seems anyway) that almost all photographers kept some silhouettes among the body of work that they called their portfolio.  There were numerous calendars on the market that were composed of entirely silhouettes.  I see very little of this in the work of today’s photographers.  There are a lot of sunrises and sunsets, in which any object that is rendered black is a silhouette, but very few that were made expressly for the purpose of rendering the shape of an object in front of a bright and often colorful background.  Usually those objects are easily identified by their shape, but a silhouette can still be great when we display lesser known objects or things as a dark shape.  Often the greatest silhouettes are created when we take objects or things (people, plants etc) and create abstractions of what we know them as. Very frequently silhouettes contain both the obvious and the mysterious.

The exposure system that will work for silhouettes under most circumstances is…..manual exposure, spot metering, taking a reading from just a bit off of the brightest part of the picture frame.  If the sun is above the horizon, that would be the spot. This is a versatile system for most situations.

Four of today’s images have never been shared before.

There is nothing like using the shape of iconic rock forms to create a strong silhouette.

Everyone knows the shape of a duck or a goose.  Both are very “mature” recognizable subjects and work well as the only shapes in the picture frame.  I’ve met some birders, and bird photographers who simply hate bird silhouettes.  “You must have detail in those bird pictures”.  That thought process escapes me as I have made tens of thousands of detailed photos of birds.  There should be room in everyone’s life for a little interpretive art.

Most Sandhill Cranes lift off a little before sunrise to look for food. This gives photographers a great opportunity to show the cranes wonderful shape.

You don’t have to be close to your subjects.  I began this misty morning making big picture sunrises.  When I paired down my point of view to only include the geese, they became the one and only shape in the picture frame.  Of course the photo is also about morning mist and sunrise colors.

In a shot like this there is no need for the detail that light would provide.  Early morning is a good time to go fishing and this scene, including the foreground geese imparts a lot of information for an image with no detail

If fishing fits well with the sunrise hour, then humans with fishing poles should make good silhouettes.  In many respects the details are in the eyes of the individual viewers.  Or subjects?  Notice that the father in the top image is wearing glasses.

Shapes for silhouettes do not have to be the concise obvious kind.  Craggy, moody old tree limbs can trigger the imagination.  If a traditional sunset with some twisted old branches is interesting, than why not an abstract of the same subject?

Gentle delicate shapes work just as well as big bold forms.

The many striking shapes of flowers make them great candidates for silhouettes.

A silhouette only needs backlight to work.  Interesting images can be made without the colors of sunrise/sunset.  You just need to fool your camera meter by pointing (in manual) it towards a bright enough part of the scene. Many man-made objects have a familiar shape that will make for powerful silhouettes.  Lighthouses are a perfect candidate.

A peaceful harbor full of sailboats at sunrise.

I will use anything that is interesting and makes a good picture.

I hope you have enjoyed our journey through shape and form.

Sometimes when I am writing I can’t help but look over my right shoulder and remember my great friend Tuxedo, who died in my arms just eight feet from here.   Stumbling and crawling his way up the back stairs, through the living room to the door of this office only to collapse.   He had just had a stroke and seemed to want to say goodbye. I would have never been tough enough to make that trip.  Even in the end I admired his tenacity and his loyalty. One of my greatest heroes.  I truly believe the animals that come into our lives’ are a gift from God. He surely knows that sometimes we need that unconditional love.

There is something poetically simple and satisfying about loving an animal.  I thank God for all that have passed through my life, but especially for Tux.