Photography techniques: silhouettes and reflections: with illustrations

 You've seen them often enough but whether the perspective has actually 'clicked' is something else again.

Both techniques are often featured in the photographic portfolios of professional photographers.

The more you do it the better you'll get and speed is often of the essence, when you see it you must click it.

Again you must use your camera a lot to know how to do it.  It's a matter of how you set the incoming light which allows it.

Generally in front of a light source, such as a window or the reflected sun in the sky blocks the incoming light and produces a silhouette.  To avoid a silhouette you need to move the camera away from the subject and set your camera either automatically or manually for the incoming light, then move back to frame your subject when the silhouetted image will not block the light to the camera and you can then avoid the silhouette, which you may or may not do.

You must consult your cameras manual for guidance on setting it and then you must find suitable images and practice, practice, practice,  this is the only way you photography will improve, without practice your range will be very limited and restricted to just simple pictures.

That's all right if that is all you want but if you wish to produce better pictures you will need to practice what I preach.

Reflections have none of these light restrictions but you will need steady hands and perhaps a tripod if you want to catch the best reflections.

Too often people think of a set of trees over still waters as setting the  for reflections.

That is all right in the right time and place but at other times there will appear reflections not in such an ideal setting and when you see them you must not miss them.

I have give a range of illustrations using reflections as a main feature and the surprising one is that which shows a building reflected in a puddle of water, which has entirely excluded the original subject, avoiding the doubling effect most expected of reflections.

Borrowed from the web the photos depicted are perhaps not the best but if you follow my daily posts on http://photographytips.com.au you will find some wonderful professional images as well as images taken by people such as yourself.

May your photographic journey be a memorable one and you can carry pictures with you which depict every aspect of your daily lives, the two techniques illustrated are just part of that journey.

Good luck and keep clicking, the world will open up before your eyes as you look "every which way but loose"  searching for the best shots.