Silhouettes can make for stunning photography. Sometimes the more distracting colour and detail you remove from an image the more powerful your communication can be. Black and white photography does this to a degree but using silhouettes takes the idea one step further, and you have the advantage of still being able to show vivid colours.
While it is possible to create silhouettes in almost any situation, it helps to have a clean background like the sky with a bright light behind the subject and a lack of light reflecting from the front of the subject. This makes sunsets (or sunrises if you are an early riser) an ideal time. In addition dramatic skies can really enhance the scene and the evening colours can be glorious.
I love finding my way down to the Manawatu river stopbank on sunny evenings and shooting what I see. Here are some of my recent images.
The key to shooting a silhouette is to set your exposure to the light behind the subject. If there is a sufficient contrast between the background and the subject then you should get a silhouette straight off the camera. After that, some quick software enhancements can remove detail, increase the contrast and add or remove background colour.
Silhouettes don't just make for pretty images - they can be a very useful tool in communicating your message, through posters, infographics and other materials. They engage the brain and let the viewer work out the rest of the story, and in my mind this is an important part of telling great stories with images.