Original subtitles

Okay, so here we are.

What I'm going to demonstrate for you now

is a natural light silhouette and just to

set the scene for you we are in

our hometown of Canmore and surrounded by glorious

mountains.

It's pretty overcast right now and one of

the things we're often asking ourselves when we're

out in a natural scene is where's the

brightest spot which is often the sky right

and I'm drawn to this whole mountain range

that I see here.

I've got Holling Peak, I've got Mount Rundle

and I've also got a natural kind of

bright V that the mountain ranges form with

the sky and I'm thinking that could be

a nice spot to silhouette my couple because

there's natural symmetry there and I know that

a silhouette is going to allow me to

bring out the drama in the clouds by

going dark and exposing for the sky but

the tricky thing is often finding a spot

where we can get our subjects up on

the sky and it's hard to do on

a flat terrain right we generally need to

get them somewhat elevated and over here I

see I've got a big down sloping it's

not very steep but it kind of rolls

down the grassy hill so I'm thinking if

I go down there with my camera I

can probably shoot up towards the sky and

have the couple hopefully up on the ridge

line and I can position them in between

the mountains so that's what I'm going to

do now we're going to head down this

slope a little bit and basically I'm going

to go down like near the bottom you

guys are going to be up near the

top so it's going to be a little

bit hard to communicate but what I'm going

to do is I'm just going to be

silhouette so you don't have to worry about

what you're doing with your faces it's the

bodies and I want motion right so I

don't want just a static pose there because

you're going to be small and so I

want you guys moving and so what I

want you to do so Florian you would

be me Sachi you're going to hold my

hand like this actually that's the wrong way

because I'm going to be down there so

open to me like this and not like

this but like this and then basically just

running back and forth and then this way

okay like this yep back and a little

hop in the step okay so that's what

I'm going to be asking you to do

once I'm down there okay what's that back

and forth back and forth okay so now

the reason I'm going down this slope is

I realize as I come down I'm hoping

I'm going to be able to basically shoot

up towards the sky and have them right

on the bottom so that I can position

them between those two mountains so you guys

stay here for now and then we'll adjust

as I get in position and as I'm

coming down I'm starting to see I'm eliminating

all the trees in the foreground I'm starting

to see that v and as I duck

down now the the tricky part is because

this isn't a very steep slope I have

to go enough that I can get their

whole bodies in that bright spot so I

haven't gone far enough yet okay so now

what I'm starting to see is the v

is coming right down onto the crest of

the hill which is about what I want

so just go to the other side of

those bushes there guys okay right there right

there okay right away I see it as

I come down here so now that I'm

in position here what I'm seeing is is

the skyline the v the point of the

v is basically meeting right at the crest

of the hill so by having them right

there I'm able to silhouette almost their entire

bodies within that within that bright spot within

the v let's get a camera here and

I need to choose my focal length I

want to go wide I've got a 28

mil on right now and that's about what

I want yeah that's about perfect so now

basically what I'm going to do to silhouette

is essentially just expose for the highlights um

so I'm going to expose for the highlights

in the sky and what that's going to

do is it's going to kill all the

mid-tones in the mountains and the grass

here and the couple are all going to

fall into darkness and be silhouetted and by

going dark and exposing for the highlights in

the sky it's going to pull out all

the drama in those clouds in terms of

because I'm out outside here in the bright

light I'm just going to choose 100 iso

okay because it's nice and bright and I

know I'm going dark anyways and then for

aperture because this is a portrait and they're

a predictable static distance from the camera I'm

going to choose a nice wide open aperture

because that's going to help me make them

pop within the scene because they're going to

be sharpest more sharp relative to the mountains

so let me get this back in the

right focusing mode there we go center point

back button focus okay now what I'm drawn

to do here compositionally is because what's most

interesting is the sky the mountains in the

sky and really anything down below them on

this slope is uninteresting it's just darkness so

I'm going to frame I'm going to frame

the composition by having them down along the

bottom edge and fill the rest of the

frame with the mountains in the sky okay

so there's my silhouette so now I've got

light taken care of I've got the composition

taken care of now I need some motion

right I can't have emotion because they're silhouette

and they're tiny but I can have motion

so guys what we're going to do is

we're going to do that holding hands frolicking

back and forth you only have to go

like two steps in each direction okay so

let me get set here oh yeah right

away now that they've separated perfect okay and

go okay and back yes yes yes okay

pause relax there so Florian what do you

have underneath your jacket yeah let's take off

the jacket just the outer layer so the

thing with silhouettes is they work a lot

better as as sort of sleek as possible

right so we're taking off that layer I

think I can have more separation between their

bodies and let's move this way into position

right there and now let's just let's just

walk casually across and go looking back at

each other yeah and back the other way

now yeah and back again great and

pause and I'm shooting I'm only shooting at

about five frames per second here I might

go up to 10 frames per second when

I get them to frolic and move I

kind of get this ups my chances of

getting a nice clean silhouette all around their

bodies remember the most important thing with silhouettes

is is not the silhouette itself but the

negative space in between the silhouette that gives

it the identity the identifiable form as you

know two human two humans up there and

go um okay and back and this time

a hop in the step frolic yes and

back again so this would work obviously is

working well in the current conditions which is

overcast if the sun were out depending on

where the sun were right now but if

it was a blue sky would also work

as a very different but you know very

dramatic silhouette as well as long as there's

no direct sun on the couple they're going

to be silhouetted right if there's sunlight on

them obviously they're not going to be silhouetted

but as long as they're either backlit or

no direct light on them they're going to

be silhouetted on the sky because the sky

is just so much brighter than they are

and you know I've got dramatic sky I've

got mountains but you can do this literally

anywhere that there's sky you can often find

an area where you can get your subjects

up on that bright sky relative to you

and you don't need a big cliff side

or a deep hill to do so often

it's just a slight incline like this is

just a slight slope and you know some

of our you know most dramatic silhouette photos

that we've made have been like literally in

in cluttered parking lots or right by the

side you know right in a ditch beside

a road so you don't have you don't

have to search far the ingredients essentially is

where's the bright spot where can I have

them up on that bright spot relative to

my to my camera okay so that's a

straightforward natural light silhouette and this photo is

cool but I definitely see potential to elevate

it to something more interesting by possibly shooting

through something in the foreground to frame the

subjects and or bringing in a reflection or

something so from here I would definitely try

to keep climbing the ladder and make my

way towards a more interesting composition