How do you take silhouette photos?


Here's how I took these photos in my kitchen!


  1. I set up my backdrop stand and backdrop. You don't need to roll it down all the way onto the floor if you are cropping your images at the waist.
  2. I put my camera on my tripod and set it up so that I could use my wireless remote to take the pictures.
  3. I put my external flash on a separate tripod and put it behind me and to my left, slightly pointed toward the backdrop itself.
  4. After putting the wireless flash trigger on both my camera body and external flash, the flash would go off when I pressed the shutter release or used my remote to take the picture.
  5. On manual mode, I used a low ISO (ISO 200 for example, a high shutter speed (1/800 for example), and a high f stop (f4 or f8 for example). This allows for less light to enter your camera when you take the picture, so you can achieve the silhouette effect. I played around with the settings until I got the look I wanted.
  6. All that was left was to take the pictures with my husband and get some self portraits!
  7. I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to edit my pictures most of the time!


Here's the equipment I used for these silhouette portraits (in my kitchen)!

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