P#5 Q#3b: Creating Photo Impact With the Use of Backlighting

Photo impact that makes your viewers say Wow!

Rob Sheppard: One thing about backlight is a lot of photographers are afraid of it.

I remember doing a class years ago where I gave everybody one light. I said, "All right, take a bunch of pictures." You know, I had groups of people -- because they would work in groups -- and no one in the entire class -- and I didn't tell them that they couldn't do it. I just wanted them to explore what they could do with this light.

No one took this light and put it behind the subject. Yet that's such a big deal. It's interesting if you look at publications, you will see backlight is very often used by the top photographers. Why? Because it's dramatic, because it makes subjects pop, and because it can be really interesting.

Now why is it that most amateurs don't like to use backlight?

Because it can be challenging. With backlight, you can have problems with flare, you can have problems with exposure.

One of the great things about digital today is that you can try these things. There's no cost to shooting.

Once you have your camera and your memory card, you can take as many pictures as you want.

My suggestion is try these different lights, try it. See what happens with backlight, see what happens with really dramatic backlight. If you get flare and you get problems with exposure, so what? You learn something. You erase those pictures and get rid of them.

But you might try it again and then it works. All of a sudden you say, "Wow, this is really neat." I think a big deal, for me, a big tip on using light is really look for the light and try photographing for the light.

One thing I've sometimes done with some of my workshops is an interesting exercise -- which I know that students always find helpful because it takes them out of the idea of photographing a subject and it takes them into the idea of looking for light -- is to go out and just photograph light.

You don't photograph subjects, you photograph light. Now, subjects are going to be important but you're looking for light. You're photographing interesting things that light is doing.

The light is always shadow so it's not just where the light is, but also the shadow because light and shadow go together. So sometimes you're photographing shadow, sometimes you're photographing light, and sometimes you're photographing interesting light on a subject.

Once you start doing an exercise like that, all of a sudden, you really do start seeing the light. That's something I would suggest that people try.

To summarize

Create greater photo impact by experimenting with different lighting situations. Try this exercise -- just photograph the light. Don't photograph subjects, photograph the things the light and shadow are doing to the subjects.