The second 52Frames assignment was Silhouette. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but I wasn’t sure exactly how to achieve it so I took a couple of Pete’s action figures outside to play around with the camera and try to figure out what I was doing. The Yoda picture above the post title turned out wildly out of focus, but I liked it anyway. He’s so mighty and dignified for such a little guy.
The first picture I took was of my old standby model, Marsha T. Cat. She was sitting in the window and the light was coming in just-so. It was an opportunistic moment that wasn’t quite what I wanted it to be. Later, at the playground, the swingset seemed like a good place to nab a silhouette photo. The large tree and the power lines made the background a little too busy, though.
After goofing around for a few days with no guidance, I decided to do some technique research. I found a few good, helpful articles on capturing silhouettes:
Photography.tutsplus.com’s “Simple Steps for Shooting Amazing Silhouettes” shares some good example photos along with relevant details about their camera settings. I love the colors and sharpness in Kristen Duke’s work at “How to Shoot a Great Silhouette.” Digital Photography School has some helpful tips about going manual or auto at “How to Photograph Silhouettes in 8 Easy Steps.”
Even with those tips, though, I couldn’t get the contrast as sharp as I wanted it to be. The “extra credit” option for this week was to do the picture using only artificial light, and it occurred to me when Pete was playing “Disney Infinity” that I might be able to use the light from the TV to capture his silhouette. Alas, he is very wiggly and our TV is on the small side and so that plan didn’t work out so well. It did, however, lead me to the idea to use light from my laptop.
I’ve seen lots of beautiful, sunset-backed silhouette pictures, and they made me want something bright and colorful as backdrop. I looked through some of Paul Gauguin’s Tahiti paintings and eventually picked “Les Montagnes Tahitiennes.” I posed one of Pete’s “Infinity” characters in front of it — it should be pretty clear which one it was — and viola! “L’Art de Canard et ‘Les Montagnes’ ” was born.
“L’Art de Canard avec ‘Les Montagnes’ “
My eldest nephew got a new camera for Christmas, and he’s going to be taking a photography class this semester. He isn’t officially participating in the 52Frames challenge, but he’s going to try out a couple of the assignments along the way. Here’s his take on the silhouette:
