Shot of the Week – Setting Silhouettes
by Mark
Filed under Shooting Tips & Inspiration
Our shot of the week this week comes from Dennis at DZ Photography. Silhouettes can be a great way to give your client something different and an artistic way to set your work apart. Check our Dennis shot below and some info about show he created the shot!
“Setting Silhouettes”
Just as I was about to wrap up this engagement session the couple asked if we could try some shots out in the reeds. After shooting a series of poses I turned around to head back when I noticed the setting sun veiled in some pretty cool looking high clouds. Add in the reeds and the silhouettes of the leafless trees in the distance and we just extended that session another 30 minutes. Because this setting had such a wide range of lighting situations from the bright sun to the shaded side of the couple, I decided to shoot in 5 to 7 shot brackets. My plan was to do a little post processing later on to create a nice HDR image of this moment in time.
When I got around to editing the shoot a few days later, I was pleased with how the entire session turned out. These fun shots at the end though were the ones I was most excited to work on. After getting some less than desirable results (funky looking effects in the couple’s silhouette) with my usual go to HDR software, I decided to go a different route. Being a longtime Adobe Lightroom user, I was aware of just how much information you can pull out of a RAW file. In Lightroom, I simply made a duplicate of the image and developed one image for the reeds and horizon and the other image for the sky. I then merged the two separate images in Photoshop. A bit of custom burning and dodging as well as blurring and sharpening and there you have it. Enjoy!
Dz
www.dzwed.com (weddings website)
www.dzpics.com (everything website)
www.prophotoshow.net (the podcast/website where I am a guest co-host and contributer)
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