Photo of the Week: June 15, 2009

Hi Gang!

Silhouettes can make very strong impressions, and they are surprisingly easy to create. Fortunately for underwater photographers, our oceans are filled with animals ranging from the green sea turtle pictured here to sea lions, sharks, manta rays and more that provide great subjects for silhouettes.

I created this week’s POTW in Malaysia in the waters off Sipidan Island. For a lot of years the turtle images in my library were lacking. Then I started diving in Hawaii and at Sipidan, and now I have more turtle pictures than I know what to do with. At Sipidan, its possible to see turtles on almost every dive, and at low tide the dropping water pushes the turtles out of the shallows and onto the walls. Dive along the top of the wall and sometimes there are so many turtles- mostly green sea turtles and some hawksbills- you feel like you need a calculator to keep track of them. On one dive a few years ago I counted 123 turtles before I quit counting and decided to concentrate on taking pictures. Some days it’s unreal!

With some patience and buoyancy control skills turtles are often easy to approach. So for the first several dives of a Sipadan trip I photographed the turtles from close range in as many ways as I could think of. I shot full body horizontals and verticals. I shot faces and tails. I shot turtles swimming and at rest. I photographed turtles feeding. I shot close-focus, wide-angle images with a sponge in the foreground and a turtle in the background, and so on and so forth.

I was running low on ideas one sunny afternoon when I looked out into the blue and saw a turtle swimming above me. Bingo! With the animal in such shallow, clear water on a sunny day, I realized I had a great chance to create a strong silhouette, so I turned off my strobes and spent the rest of my day working on silhouetting a turtle.

When creating a silhouette underwater, the objective is usually to contrast a dark subject against more lightly hued water that is above the subject (usually close to the surface). The impact of a silhouette is derived from (1) the interesting shape of the subject,(2) the sharp lines that separate the subject from its background, and (3) the strong contrast between the subject and the background.  

I am not big on rules in life or underwater photography, but when trying to create a silhouette I often tell my photo classes that “the first rule of silhouettes” is that your eye must see a distinct silhouette in the water when you are composing your frame. You can’t wish your way to success. The takeaway message here is that if you don’t see a distinct silhouette as you trip the shutter, you need to change something so that you do. That “something” might be your camera-to-subject distance (you might be too close, in which case you will see some color and detail in your subject, but you don’t see a distinct silhouette), your angle of orientation to your subject with regard to the position of the sun, or some other factor. The bottom line is you have to see a distinct silhouette in the water in order to capture one with your camera.

While it is not necessary, powerful visual impact often results when your silhouetted subject is framed directly against the whitish pool of light created by the ball of light photographers often refer to as the “sunburst.” However, when using a digital camera, if the sun is in your picture it is especially important to try to have your subject completely block the sunburst. In images created with film cameras the sunburst often looks natural and inviting, but with many digital cameras, the pool of light in an “unblocked” sunburst often looks unnatural- like a big, distracting, just plain ugly cyan blob- and the image appears badly flawed.

Once you “see your shot” the key is to properly expose the water next to your subject. The idea is to make the water next to your subject in your image look exactly like it does to your eyes during your dive. The best way to accomplish that exposure goal is to take a light meter reading on the water next to your subject (not on the subject). If your background is too dark, open the aperture (i.e. change from f/22 to f/16), and if the background appears overexposed, close down the aperture (i.e. going from f/11 to f/16). If you use a light meter in either a film camera or a digital camera, you will want to dial in your film speed (ISO) and shutter speed, and the light meter will “tell you” the correct f/stop to use to expose the water.

It is also possible to dial in your ISO and f/stop, and bracket with your shutter speed. I prefer to use a fast shutter speed and bracket with my f/stop, but either technique works. In either case, the idea is to properly expose the water, and as long as you do, your subject will appear dark or under exposed, and you will have your silhouette!

If you have the opportunity, shoot a bracketed sequence of shots using the f/stop indicated by your light meter as well as the adjacent f/stops (or shutter speeds) so you have some choice with regard to the best exposure when editing your images. I use the “spot metering” option for my light meter so that I can take an accurate light meter reading off of a particular band of water (the water right next to my subject that I want to properly expose), and I set my camera in the manual mode.

Use a fast shutter speed such as 1/125^th or 1/250^th of a second, or even faster, to help “freeze the action” and to produce crisp edges in your subject. A fast shutter speed will also help “freeze” individual shafts of light rays that might be in your shot. For this week’s POTW, I used a shutter speed of 1/500^th of a second. I find that if I use a speed of say 1/2000^th of a second the silhouette will be very sharp, but sometimes the “frozen light rays” have an artificial look that I don’t care for when my shutter speed is that fast. You might have a different opinion about that.

Once you have your camera set up and you have taken your light meter reading, all you have to do is compose, focus and trip the shutter. It might seem like there are a lot of things to remember when creating a silhouette, but with just a little practice, shooting silhouettes is fairly easy, and the results can be very powerful images.

Hope you enjoy this week’s POTW!