Shoot Nine- Silhouettes Work Diary

For this shoot, the main aim was to experiment different ways to create a silhouette photo within a studio. Even though as already spoken about in my shoot analysis, this shoot differs from the other shoots, it was purely for experimentation purposes to see whether or not it would work because whilst researching I had came across many photos which included silhouettes and I really liked it- therefore I aimed to try it out.

The technique...

The first image here shows my first stage of experimenting with the studio lighting, I had one main light with a generic soft box of and I go my subject to stand in front of it and I connected it to my camera so when the photo took the light was set off, however as you can see in the first photo, it didn't work as a silhouette and rather highlighted the sides of my subject. You can still see what my subject really looks like- seeing their facial features. Therefore, I opted to try this technique with the standard light on without using the flash, this gained the technique of the image shown in the middle above. Even though this shows the technique coming into play; you cannot see my subjects features other than their actual body, it appears quite yellow/orange which I didn't really like. A way I therefore overcame this was by turning the power up on the studio lights so it was much brighter, this therefore created the effect as shown on the last image above- this is the stage what I mainly used however the images taken with the middle light settings were also used with the use of photoshop I was able to white-balance on the levels tool.

My favourite image from this shoot:

Even though the framing of this image shows the outside of the soft box, creating a dark line of the left side of the frame, this is still my favourite image in this shoot due to the body language of my subject. In this shoot (as shown on my straight images) I used a variety of different people to test who displayed the typical youth silhouette- I also wanted to show the difference in youth through the silhouettes, yet I found this one most successful in complying with my stereotypical youth portrayal. This is because my subject was just about to put up his hood, I got him to do this because I thought that photos with his hood up would be really interesting in showing the stereotypical youth hoodie culture, yet I have found that the stage of him putting up the hood looks better.

My least favourite image from this shoot:

This is my least favourite image in this shoot because I thought that this subject having her hood up would look quite good- this is the same subject I used in one of my technique shoots at the beginning of the year gaining an image which I liked. However in the context of silhouettes, I do not think it has worked very well because the fur on the hood doesn't look as effective than it does when you can actually see my subjects. 

Overall:

I have found this technique really successful when showing the stereotypical youth picture however, I do not think it fits very well with my other shoots, if I were to do all my shoots within the studio, then I believe it would work, however the way I have done all my other shoots on location and most as documentary form, I think it stands out too much.