The subjects are lit from the front, and the image is evenly exposed without any harsh shadows. It’s a great photograph, and it meets all the normal criteria for a maternity shot. But let’s look at another photo of this couple, this one using backlighting:

is an educational technology specialist at Oklahoma State University and enjoys sharing his enthusiasm for photography on his website and podcast at Weekly Fifty. He and his brother host a monthly podcast called Camera Dads where they discuss photography and fatherhood, and Simon also posts regularly to Instagram where you can follow him as @sringsmuth.

Backlighting refers to light that comes from behind the subject. In other words, backlighting hits the back of the subject and shines directly into the camera lens.

What isbacklight on TV

Because backlight comes from behind the subject, you’ll generally get photos with a bright background and a dark subject. You might even get a silhouette effect, where the subject turns a detailless black, as in the case of these windmills:

That’s what this article is all about. I’m going to explain everything you need to know about backlighting, so that by the time you finish reading, you’ll understand:

Side lighting definition film

As I emphasized in the previous section, backlighting is dramatic. It often creates silhouettes, yellow halos around the subject, and/or a brilliantly bright background.

One interesting way to use backlighting is to obscure your subject altogether. This technique is known as silhouette backlighting, and it can be a fun and creative way to showcase people, animals, and other objects.

Now, backlighting is a highly artistic form of lighting. It won’t always give you a silhouette, but it will create lots of subject-background contrast, so you should only use it when you’re after a dramatic look. In the next section, I explain when to use backlighting – and when to avoid it – in greater detail:

Expose for the highlights, then bring up the shadows in Lightroom. Basically, try not to make your photo too bright because you may end up with clipped highlights (i.e., white, informationless areas that cannot be darkened).

Then move around until the sun is poking out from behind the subject’s edge. Shoot with a small aperture, usually f/8 to f/11, and shift the camera position until you get the shot just right.

Most people would pass by this scene without a second thought, but it just goes to show how backlighting can give new life to even mundane subjects.

But while backlighting is wonderfully artistic, it’s not ideal if you want to create documentary-style shots of architecture, products, wildlife, and so on. In such situations, frontlighting or sidelighting is generally the better decision, as it’ll produce plenty of detail on the subject. Therefore, most photographers use backlighting sparingly (as a special effect).

Backlighting isn’t just for portraits, though! It can be used in a variety of situations for creative, inspiring images, including nature photography:

Now, you create silhouette images by shooting directly into the light source – which completely darkens your subject. To get the image below, I pointed the camera at my main source of light, then waited for someone to walk by. The fountain itself doesn’t emit light, but instead reflects what comes from the sun – and it was so bright that it completely darkened my subject. The image tells a story, even without showing any subject details.

backlight背光

The intensity of light from a central source varies inversely as the square of the distance. If you lived on a planet only half as far from the Sun as our Earth, how would the light intensity compare with that on Earth? How about a planet ten times farther away than Earth?

Lighting design

Sunrise and sunset are great times to try out backlighting. Look for situations where your subjects are at a bit of a distance; it also helps to have a general idea of where the sun will be at dawn and dusk. Metering with backlight is tricky, so I like to use Aperture Priority to control the depth of field and then dial in exposure compensation to get my shots as light or as dark as I want.

Silhouettes aren’t just for people. You can use silhouette backlighting for a variety of subjects; all it takes is a little creativity and a willingness to try something different.

A small light source located \(1 \mathrm{~m}\) in front of a \(1-\mathrm{m}^{2}\) opening illuminates a wall behind. If the wall is \(1 \mathrm{~m}\) behind the opening \((2 \mathrm{~m}\) from the light source), the illuminated area covers \(4 \mathrm{~m}^{2}\). How many square meters will be illuminated if the wall is \(3 \mathrm{~m}\) from the light source? \(5 \mathrm{~m} ? 10 \mathrm{~m} ?\)

Backlighting can also be created in nature, but only when the sun is at an angle to your subject, which is why most photographers use backlight late in the day, during the golden hours. They position the subject so that the light hits it from behind, then they shoot into the sun!

What isbacklight in photography

Therefore, backlighting is great if you want to create stunning, eye-catching effects. Here are a handful of specific images you can take with backlighting:

In the absence of air resistance, why does the horizontal component of a projectile's motion not change, while the vertical component does?

It’s difficult to manage. Exposing for both the subject and the background is hard – even impossible. In order to handle backlit subjects, you need to have a strong understanding of your camera’s exposure settings; otherwise, you’ll come away frustrated.

It helps to see some actual portrait photos that illustrate the concept of backlighting versus frontlighting. This first image is a fairly standard portrait shot:

If Earth somehow expanded to a larger radius, with no change in mass, how would your weight be affected? How would it be affected if instead Earth shrunk?

Examples ofbacklightingin film

I knew where the sun was positioned, so I waited patiently until a person walked into the frame. By putting my subject directly between the camera and the main source of light, I was able to capture a silhouette. The end result is much more interesting than a normal, properly-exposed image taken in broad daylight.

Whyis backlightingused in films

Here, you’ll want to use some type of Manual mode (either full Manual or Aperture Priority with exposure compensation). It’ll give you better control over the final image, and you won’t need your camera to make exposure decisions in tricky lighting conditions. Simply expose for the background and let your subject turn dark:

If you were in a car that drove off the edge of a cliff, why would you be momentarily weightless? Would gravity still be acting on you?

Backlightingexamples

The parents-to-be are shrouded in shadow (which I was able to boost in Lightroom, thanks to the RAW file format), and the woman’s hair is glowing with a brilliant golden halo. The man has a glowing outline around his head, and the entire scene has a slightly mystical quality to it.

I used a similar technique for the image below. You can see how my use of backlighting made this large blade of grass appear almost translucent. The shot was not an accident, and I was only able to capture it by looking for new ways to shoot familiar subjects. In this case, I was only photographing a simple piece of grass!

When you light your subjects from behind, you can get images like these, which combine glowing hair, brilliant outlines, and a beautiful background. This type of photo does take practice, but with a little trial and error, you can use backlighting to get similar results.

And once you start looking for the light, you’ll notice shots like this everywhere. In fact, one of the best ways to learn backlighting is to go out in nature and simply experiment by putting your subjects between the camera and the sun.

The key here is to shoot late in the day, when the sun is at its weakest. And specifically expose with the background in mind, even if it means the subject will be overexposed. (You can brighten the subject in post-processing.)

When shooting in nature, the main source of light is the sun, but you don’t have to use direct sunlight. In the image above, the mid-afternoon sun made these leaves glow. The sun isn’t in the frame, but it still lit the leaves from the back and gave me a fun photo opportunity.

His hair suddenly looks like it’s on fire, and his ears have a bit of a glow. The right side of the background is lush and green, whereas the left side, where the sun is positioned, is almost entirely blown out. Even the man’s shoulders are outlined in gold, and the photo has an energy to it that the frontlit photo just can’t match.