How to shoot a good backlight?

When summer comes, the sun becomes terrible again, and even the time of taking pictures will change with time. It's too hot to go out, and it's too dark to take good photos. But the light outside is too strong, and the photos taken are either backlit or hard-shadow. How can I take good-looking photos in the fierce sunshine?

Especially when the light source is behind the model, it is easy to take pictures with all black subjects or all white backgrounds. This is a problem that needs to be studied to clearly show the details of the theme and background.

Of course, reverse lighting does not necessarily mean that the light source is directly behind the subject. We can broadly understand that the light source appears in a range behind the subject, and the front of the subject is in the backlight area. If we need to take photos in a direct and dazzling position, glare may appear in the picture because the light directly enters the lens. Glare has two aspects. On the one hand, it may interfere with the expression of the picture or make the picture lose details, but it may also make the picture look more interesting and dramatic. How to understand the role of glare in the picture depends on our own understanding and needs.

If you want the picture to have no glare, you need to block the route of direct light to the lens. The most effective way is to use a hood or find a cover on the lens, such as shooting indoors or in the shade of trees. Shadows will block unnecessary light and make the image less blurred.

If you want to get enough exposure on the front of the model in backlight environment, it may be difficult to achieve it only by the dynamic range of the camera itself, because if you measure light in the back, the front of the model will be obviously underexposed, while if you measure light in the front of the model, the background will be overexposed. At this time, it is necessary to use some external supplementary light sources, such as supplementary flash, so as to correctly expose the model's face and illuminate the underexposed part of the image with flash.

Ideally, the auxiliary flash should not be an external flash directly facing the main body. The plane illumination on the front will make the model lose its three-dimensional sense, and the supplementary flash should have enough freedom to adjust the angle and intensity of the illumination on the model's face.

In fact, for most backlight photography, we all want to take beautiful silhouette photos. Sometimes, we can tell stories through silhouette. Because of the strong brightness contrast between the foreground and the background, we can't see any details of the subject in the foreground, only a dark outline, and we can't see their expressions, so we can't perceive their emotions. Everything needs our imagination to guess possible stories.

Because all emotions are possible, which is one of the reasons why some silhouettes are so attractive. By forcing the audience to think about the missing details, the audience will develop different stories because of their different ideas.

First of all, we should understand that silhouette is caused by the contrast between the subject and the background exceeding the dynamic range of the camera. If the background exposure is correct, the subject will be underexposed. If the subject is exposed correctly, the background will be overexposed. Therefore, a basic requirement for taking silhouette photos is to place the object under a strong light source with the object facing away from the strong light source.

If you don't deliberately use artificial light source, the best place to shoot silhouette is early morning or evening, and the sun is close to the horizon, which can be used as the background light source. Exposure to sunlight darkens the entire image, making it easier to create contours. Even if the exposure is reduced a lot, the sun will not be underexposed and will not produce annoying highlights.

At this time, the light is soft gold, which will produce a beautiful golden halo around the main body.

When taking a silhouette, the geometric shape and guide lines of the image will be more emphasized in the picture. Try to arrange the elements in the picture, and guide the viewer's line of sight to the main body with guide lines to ensure that there are no redundant elements behind the main body that will interfere with the overall outline. Unless you want to create independently and deliberately, the branches behind the main body may make people feel that the main body has become a spider.

One of the easiest ways to avoid background interference is to lower the camera angle and shoot from top to bottom, so that the oblique angle will turn the background of the subject into an empty sky and minimize the interference.

Most of the silhouette photos taken by the camera may not be what we like, because the camera is too smart and always wants to be smart. If you want to get a perfect silhouette photo, you still need to make post-adjustment, increase the contrast between the subject and the background, and adjust the tone.