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| Photos taken during those golden hours of the day (just before sunrise and just after sunset) have a stunning quality to them. This light can create dynamic and dramatic effects and changes the mood of pictures taken with flat or, worse, overhead lighting. I've found great freedom shooting at sunset as it provides artistic flexibility and natural photos. |
| To achieve backlit photos, the sun must be behind the subject. A huge benefit to having portraits backlit with the sun is that lovely rim lighting--where the edges of your model(s) are outlined by a thin thread of light. The key is to stand at the right angle (I've said this before, but knowing the right angle simply comes with lots of practice, but you can try finding the right angle by taking an object in your backyard at sunset and seeing where you must stand for it to be truly backlit and, separately, where you must stand to see the rim light). Rim lighting is most prominent on subjects that have a thin profile, such as grass and hair (be careful because if you're photographing a subject with blond hair, it'll be easy to blow out the highlights, making her look like she's missing hair). |
| I prefer to shoot at sunset with wide apertures because I love the shallow depth of field and the amazing bokeh it produces. Bokeh is more prominent when dealing with light sources (which is why I love the setting sun as my light source because of the golden effect is gives), so it's common for me to shoot a subject at f/2.0 or wider to establish my focal point and blur out distractions in the background. A word of caution: Depending on how much light you're working with, it's easy to let too much light into your sensor and overexpose the image. |
A Few Tips for Shooting Backlit
1. Compose the Shot
A nice trick I use is to compose the shot with my subject blocking the sun, adjusting my settings, then quickly sidestep or shift my camera to recompose the photo. |
2. Only Show a Portion of the Sun
It might be a good idea to have only a portion of the sun viewable and keep the majority of it blocked your your subject to avoid flooding the photo with too much light. There's delicate balance to find the right amount of light you prefer, golden tones, and lens flare, so practice is key...but don't hesitate to experiment as well. I'll never forget the first photo I experimented with sun flare and backlighting subjects (back in 2007!)...in a moving vehicle. I was nervous but I loved the results. |
3. Manual Mode is Best
Exposing backlit could be an exposure nightmare (exposing for the subject as well as balancing the sun in the photo and the dramatic light across the image), but I found that practicing really helped me.
How I Practiced:
I fired off a few test shots in Auto Mode and made note of my settings (aperture, ISO, and shutter speed), then put these settings into Manual Mode, adjusting as I saw fit to correct my exposure. Since I wanted to emphasize depth of field, I didn't adjust my aperture and instead selected my aperture for the effect I wanted and adjusted my shutter speed to move my exposure around. (Yes, I realize this was the most ghetto fab approach to learning how to shoot backlit, but I didn't know how else to approach it, so I just made up my own rules and made them work!). In the years since, I no longer have to use this method because of all the practice, but it was a good place for me to start and understand how to approach it. |
I hope this helps a little bit...if you'd like to see these practices in motion, feel free to check out this photography tutorial video!
Stay Fabulous,
j*
**Updated to Add**
I didn't (and don't) use fill flash for backlit photos...thanks for asking! :) |
    
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