Sunset Silhouette
I like a good silhouette, but find this type of photography to be challenging. I think that’s because there needs to be a healthy balance between light and shadow (balanced light), strong features, colour and negative space.
After making some sunset photos on the beach during our first evening in the beautiful Amalfi Coast town of Positano, I noticed this group of people down towards the water’s edge. I moved to frame the main group with the sea behind them, and with the strong orange colours in the background.
I then waited to get some interesting poses, taking multiple exposures as the group moved around and enjoyed the beach.
In the off season (we visited late November) there are few crowds, so finding enough people while leaving plenty of negative space wasn’t too challenging. Had there been larger crowds I would have to have framed the image differently.
The strong contrast between light and dark was still a factor, even after sunset, so I made use of a 2 stop GND to manage the colour balance.
With this the shutter speed was still quite fast at 1/50th, so getting a sharp exposure wasn’t too challenging. The use of tripod still helped.