From the course: Photography Foundations: Flash

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Silhouette effect

Silhouette effect

From the course: Photography Foundations: Flash

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Silhouette effect

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- Earlier I mentioned that of the three lighting rules, key, fill, and backlight, backlight was the most optional, it's the one you don't always use. And you've seen here today, we've done some shots without a backlight. Now I'm going to go the other direction and use only backlight. I'm going to shoot Chan covered with birds who are preening his hair quite lovely. (laughter) Looking really good. I'm going to shoot him as a silhouette, so what I've done is I've taken two flashes and pointed them at the white wall, so I'm bouncing all that light off of the back wall onto him so that he's entirely back lit. The reason I used two flashes is I want the light to be even. If I put just one behind him I get a circular pattern, having them overlap gives me a nice big even background which I need 'cause he's spread out a little bit. I had to put the flashes off to the side, angled inward because I needed them out of my frame. So I've got them set at about 8th power, because if I go full power,…

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