Week 2: Silhouette

            “Only a friend or a giraffe would stick his neck out for you. But only a giraffe would eat all the leaves off your tree so he could peek in your second story bedroom window.” 

Two: Silhouette

              I hope this photo brought you some much needed warmth amidst this winter blizzard. Funny enough, the above image was not my initial concept. I came across quite a romantic silhouette that I tried to recreate with cardboard cutouts, but it didn't quite work out the way I wanted it. Thereafter, I tried shooting a velociraptor, artificial stems,a jewelry organizer and my cats. I wasn't pleased with any of the outcomes. Here's a composite of my attempts.

            The set up for the ones against the white backdrop was fairly simply. I hung a plain white backdrop against a bookshelf and aimed a spotlight at the white space. Then I placed a table a foot away from the backdrop and positioned my subjects in front of the brightest part of where the spotlight shone. I aimed at the center of my subjects while shooting. The images were edited to further darken the blacks to give the silhouette a more defined outline. The same setup was used for the giraffe shot. I added a bit of warmth and tweaked the yellow and orange hues in post processing to add the sunset or island-like look to the final edit. The setup for the couple against the colored lights was slightly different. I hung black backdrop and randomly attached the colored lights with safety pins. Afterwards, I placed my cutouts on black table a foot and a half in front of the lights and shot with a 2.0 aperture to enhance the bokeh effect. Though I really liked the silhouette couple, I was not pleased with the fuzzy edges of the cutout. I tried my best to refine the edges with an X-acto knife and scissors, but the cutout was too tiny and fragile to handle further adjustments. 

           This was my second attempt at silhouette since joining 52 Frames. My first attempt can be found here. 

           Super excited for the album this week. Be sure to check the weekly submission on the group's Facebook page.