Backlighting Pt. 2

In backlight 1 we looked at why it works so well and how to do it. Now lets shoot a couple of images and put backlighting into practice.

First I'll show you how to go about shooting a landscape straight into the light. Ther'll be sparkles on the water and lots of shape and texture in the foreground boats. The shape is because the light is wrapping around the boats and the shadows give them shape just like they did with the ropes.

There two images are something a bit closer to my heart - a backlit motorbike. In the top image I'm shooting against the light and the sun's slightly in front of me.

In the bottom image the light is where 'they' say it should be - behind me. It's an OK photo but personally I prefer the top one because the bike stands out against the background.

When you backlight like this keep an eye on your exposure and think what the photo is about. Backlighting often makes the foreground and background outside what the camera's sensor can capture so you will have to choose which area of the image to expose for.