Work with beautiful backlight
Once mastered, the use of backlight can produce some powerful imagery
When photography was popularised, Kodak cameras came with advice to place the sun over one shoulder before taking a shot. While appropriate for a scientist, it invariably produced flat, uninteresting front lighting. The same problem happens today when people use their on-camera flash. Front lighting is boring, but it’s what we see most of the time.
As photographers, if our intention is to create compositions that make people look a second time, then using lighting with a difference is an important tool – and backlighting is different.
Human eyes adapt to light as we scan our subjects, so backlighting may not be immediately obvious on location. It can take practice to see and find. However, once recorded in a photograph, there is a beauty in backlighting that’s not found elsewhere. There’s a sense of mystery or discovery as we peer into the shadows.
Sometimes backlighting is associated with silhouettes and black, detail-less shapes. While these can create strong compositions, many subjects benefit from a little fill light (or postproduction techniques) that adds in at least a hint of detail.
Backlighting doesn’t have to be directly behind your subject. In fact, backlighting at a bit of an angle can provide some wonderful ‘kicker’ lights as it glances past your subject(s). We can use this light, positioned appropriately in the frame, in order to create some strong, emotive compositions.
Rim lighting is when backlighting picks up the edge of your subject and creates an outline. Generally this outline is very bright in comparison to the overall exposure, so taking care with your exposure is necessary – but it is this lighting contrast that adds to the strength of your composition.
Additionally, back and rim lighting can be compositionally powerful when shot against a dark background. Similarly, removing a bright, distracting sky from your frame can strengthen the composition.