Shooting Against the Light

Backlighting goes against conventional wisdom which says 'Keep the sun behind you'. When you're backlighting you do the opposite and shoot towards the sun or light source.

This backlighting technique can add a halo of light to portraits and bring translucent objects like glass or ice to life - but you have to be very careful with your exposure or you could end up with a silhouette. Especially when shooting a backlit portrait.

By using exposure compensation or making a manual exposure to avoid this, backlighting a photo makes it strong and separates people from the background.

In this video we'll demonstrate all the above by shooting a portrait of Tasha and show you how to control your exposure whilst backlighting any subject you choose.

• What is backlighting?
• Why it works so well
• A great backlighting location
• Avoiding dark underexposed subjects when backlighting

Light is KEY to photography. If you want to understand it better consider my Masterclass in Photogaphy 4 week course.