Backlighting: Silhouettes, Rim Light, and Dramatic Effects

Backlighting is light that comes from behind the subject and points toward the camera. Depending on your angle and exposure it gives a silhouette, a bright rim of light around the edges, or a glow through thin material such as leaves, hair and fabric. To keep detail on the side facing you, meter the subject and add about +1 to +2 stops over what the camera suggests, or add fill from a reflector or flash. To get a silhouette, expose for the bright background instead.

This guide covers all three looks backlight can give: the silhouette, the rim, and the glow. The short definition of a silhouette is on the glossary page for silhouette, and lens flare has its own page.

What backlight does that other light cannot

Light from the front shows surfaces. Light from behind shows edges and whatever light can pass through. Four separate things happen, and most backlit pictures use one or two of them:

• An outline. Light skimming past the subject catches hair, fur, fuzz and the curve of a shoulder or cheek, drawing a bright line around a darker shape. That line separates the subject from the background.
• A glow through thin material. Leaves, petals, fabric, feathers, ears, glass and liquids let some light through. Seen from the shadow side they look lit from within, and their color is stronger than by reflected light because there is no surface glare diluting it.
• Visible air. Small particles and droplets scatter light mostly forward, in the direction it was already traveling. Rain, spray, mist, smoke, dust, steam and breath on a cold morning are nearly invisible with the sun behind you and bright when you face it, especially against something dark.
• A shadowed front. The side toward the camera is lit only by the sky and by whatever bounces back from the ground and surroundings. That light is soft and even, which is why backlit faces have no squinting and no hard nose shadows.

The cost is contrast. The background and the edges can be several stops brighter than the side you are looking at, and the camera cannot hold both without help. For how backlight compares with front, side and top light, see direction of light.

Backlight versus rim light versus silhouette

These three words get used as if they meant the same thing. Backlight is a position: the light is behind the subject. Rim light and silhouette are two looks that position can produce, and you choose between them with your angle, your background and your exposure.

Term	What it names	Light position	Background	Expose for
Backlight	Where the light is, not a look	Behind the subject, pointing toward the camera	Any	Depends on the look you want
Rim light	A bright line along the subject’s edge	Behind and slightly to one side	Darker than the lit edge	The bright edge
Silhouette	A dark shape with no detail inside it	Directly behind the subject, or any bright area behind it	Brighter than the subject	The background
Backlit portrait	A softly lit face with a bright edge on the hair	Behind the person, often a low sun	Darker than the hair where possible	The face, or the background plus fill

In a studio, a rim light is also the name of a separate lamp placed behind and to one side of the subject to draw that edge on purpose.

Where to put the light, the subject and the background

The angle of the light

With the light exactly behind the subject, the rim is thin and even all the way round, and the source itself is hidden. Move a step or two sideways so the light sits 20 to 45 degrees off that line and the rim thickens on one side, wraps further onto the cheek or shoulder and starts to show form. Go much further and it becomes side light.

Height matters as much. A low sun, in the hour after sunrise or before sunset, sits behind a standing person’s head and shoulders and is weak enough to manage. This is why golden hour is the usual time for backlit portraits. A high sun lights the top of the head and shoulders only, and you have to shoot from a low position to put it behind anything.

The background

A bright rim only shows against something darker than itself. Place the subject in front of shaded trees, a dark hillside, a building in shadow or a doorway, and the outline stands out. Put the same subject against bright sky and the rim disappears into it. Often this means raising the camera a little so the background behind the head is distant shaded ground, not sky.

Hiding the source

The simplest way to tame backlight is to put the subject, a tree trunk, a building edge or a hat between the lens and the sun. The subject is still backlit, but the direct beam no longer hits the front element, so contrast stays high. Letting a sliver of sun peek past the edge brings back flare and, at small apertures, a starburst. Never look at the sun through an optical viewfinder with a long lens.

Exposing for the subject versus the background

Camera metering set to evaluate the whole frame sees a large bright background and reduces exposure to protect it. The shadowed subject, already darker, ends up two to three stops too dark. You have to tell the camera which part of the scene matters. There are four outcomes, and you choose one:

• Detail in the subject’s shadow side: Expose for: The subject. How: Spot meter the face, or add +1 to +2 stops of compensation. What you give up: The background goes very bright or pure white.
• A silhouette: Expose for: The background. How: Meter the sky beside the sun; often 0 to -1 stop. What you give up: All detail inside the subject.
• Rim or glow as the subject: Expose for: The lit edge or the glowing material. How: Meter the highlight; often -0.7 to -1.7 against a dark background. What you give up: The shadow side falls dark.
• Detail in both subject and sky: Expose for: The background, then add light. How: Fill with a reflector or flash, or bracket and blend. What you give up: Simplicity; needs extra gear or editing.

Getting the subject right

1. Switch to spot metering and put the spot on the cheek or on a mid-toned part of the subject, or stay in the default mode and dial in +1 exposure compensation as a first guess.
2. Take a frame and look at the subject, not the background. Add more until the face or main surface looks right. Pale skin lit only by open sky often needs a little more than the spot reading; dark skin a little less.
3. Once it is right, move to manual exposure with those settings. The light on the subject is not changing, but every small reframing changes how much bright background the meter sees, so automatic modes drift from frame to frame.
4. Check the histogram. A spike at the right edge from the background is expected. What matters is that the subject’s tones sit in the middle, not crushed at the left.

Why does the camera keep underexposing the subject? Exposure compensation explains why the meter gets fooled, and camera metering modes compares matrix, center-weighted and spot.

How much background to sacrifice

A white, featureless background is not a fault if it is a choice: it gives a clean, bright look that suits portraits and plants. It becomes a fault when the white eats into the subject’s outline, which happens when thin hair or fine twigs are surrounded by blown sky. If that starts, reduce exposure by a third or two thirds of a stop and lift the shadows later; a raw file tolerates that well. When the gap is simply too large, shoot a bracket on a tripod for still subjects, and see dynamic range for what one frame can hold.

Silhouettes: backlight with the exposure set for the sky

Expose for the bright background and the subject drops to black. A silhouette strips the subject down to its outline, so it works when the shape alone tells the story: a profile, a tree, a skyline, a cyclist on a ridge, a bird in flight. If a viewer cannot name the subject from its outline, it will read as a dark blob.

Which photo reads as a cleaner silhouette?

A B

Camera settings for a silhouette

1. Meter the sky, not the subject. Use spot or center-weighted metering on a bright part of the sky beside the sun, never on the sun itself. Evaluative or matrix metering tries to balance the frame and often leaves the subject a muddy dark gray instead of black.
2. Lock that reading. Note the settings, switch to manual and enter them, so the exposure does not change when you recompose. In aperture or shutter priority, dial in 0 to -2 stops of exposure compensation instead.
3. Choose f/8 to f/16. A silhouette depends on a crisp outline, and a moderate to small aperture keeps the subject and anything behind it sharp. With the sun in the frame, f/16 or smaller turns it into a starburst.
4. Keep ISO low. There is plenty of light from the background, and a low ISO keeps the sky smooth and its colors clean.
5. Focus on the subject. Autofocus likes the hard edge where the dark shape meets the sky. If it hunts, focus manually on the outline.
6. Turn off the flash. An automatic flash that fires will light the subject and undo the effect.

If you can still see color and texture inside the subject, it is not a true silhouette yet. Reduce exposure by another stop.

When and where to find silhouette light

• Sunset and sunrise. The classic time. A low sun lights the sky with color while anything between you and the sun stays dark. The colors are often strongest in the minutes around sunset and just before sunrise, and sunrise tends to give softer, cleaner skies with less haze.
• Bright overcast. A cloudy sky is still much brighter than the ground, so it gives quiet, low-color silhouettes that suit black and white.
• Midday. Shooting toward a high sun from a low position gives hard, graphic silhouettes against plain blue.
• Indoors and at night. A bright window, a lit doorway, a street lamp, a stage light or a fire all work. A person in front of a window is the easiest indoor silhouette there is.
• Fog and mist. Backlit fog turns trees and people into soft gray shapes that fade with distance. See fog photography.

Posing and placing the subject

• Turn people side on. A face in profile shows a nose, lips and chin. A face toward the camera shows only an oval.
• Leave gaps. Ask people to move their arms a little away from their bodies, and couples or groups to stand slightly apart, so each outline stays separate. Action helps: a jump, a stride, a hand reaching out.
• Keep the whole shape against bright sky. Any part that overlaps a dark tree, hill or building merges with it and the outline breaks. Watch for mergers along the horizon.
• Get low. Shooting from a low position puts more sky behind the subject and makes it look taller and more imposing.

Composing a silhouette

Because the subject is a flat shape, the sky does half the work. Give it room with negative space, and wait for clouds or color, since a plain white sky makes a plain picture. Place a single figure off center, as in the rule of thirds, so it has space to look or move into. Still water doubles the shape with a reflection. Several silhouettes at different distances, such as a near tree, a person in the middle and far hills, give a flat image a sense of depth, and haze makes each layer a little lighter than the one in front.

Rim light and translucency: hair, leaves and fabric

A clean rim

Rim light needs three things: a small, hard source behind the subject (direct sun, a bare lamp, a street light), a dark background, and an exposure that does not burn the rim out. The outline is the brightest thing in the frame, so if you expose for the shadow side it clips to white and loses its color and texture. When the rim is the point of the picture, expose for it and let the rest go dark.

Between a full silhouette and a fully lit subject is the partial silhouette: a dark shape with a thin line of light along one edge. Move a step to one side so the sun sits just off the subject’s edge, keep the exposure set for the sky, and the rim appears while the body stays dark. A little more exposure brings out more of the rim; a little less keeps the silhouette dominant.

Texture decides how wide the rim looks. Smooth, hard surfaces give a hairline. Fur, wool, frizzy hair, seed heads, grasses and frost catch light on thousands of fine strands and give a thick, soft halo. That is why animals, dandelions and long grass are classic backlit subjects. In a studio the same edge comes from a separate light behind the subject; placement and power are covered in rim light.

Leaves and petals

Stand so the leaf is between you and the sun, with shade behind it. Veins, cells and insect damage all show, and greens and autumn reds become far more saturated than from the front. Meter the glowing leaf itself; against a dark background the camera will otherwise overexpose it, so expect to dial in -0.7 to -1.3. Thin leaves glow; thick, waxy ones mostly block light and give only a rim. Overlapping leaves show as darker patches where two layers stack, which can be a pattern in itself.

Hair

Backlit hair gives portraits their halo. Fair, gray and red hair pass and scatter a lot of light and glow broadly. Dark, dense hair shows only a thin bright edge, so it needs a stronger source or a darker background to register. Loose strands light up individually, which can look lively or untidy; smooth them or use them, but look before you shoot. A hat brim or hood blocks the effect entirely.

Fabric, glass and liquid

Veils, thin dresses, curtains, sails, flags, tents and umbrellas all act as glowing panels when lit from behind, and they also soften the light that reaches whatever is behind them. Check that thin clothing is not more see-through than the wearer expects. Drinks, bottles and glassware are almost always lit from behind in product work, because light passing through the liquid is what shows its color.

Where backlight works best: portraits, landscapes, plants and wildlife

• Portraits. A low sun behind the person gives a bright edge on the hair. Portrait lighting patterns sets out the classic patterns for light from the front and side.
• Landscapes. Sunrise and sunset light mist, dust and haze from behind, which separates ridges and trees into layers, and fog glows when the sun is behind it. Golden hour and blue hour describes the light at each end of the day.
• Plants and wildlife. Petals, leaves and seed heads glow, fur and feathers catch a rim, and an animal against sky or water can be a clean silhouette. See wildlife photography.

Filling the shadow side with a reflector or flash

Fill is extra light added to the camera side so the subject and the bright background fit in one exposure. Set the exposure for the background first, then bring the subject up to meet it.

A reflector

Hold a reflector on the camera side, angled to catch the sun coming over the subject’s shoulder and return it to the face. You can see the effect before you shoot, and it costs nothing in batteries.

• White gives soft, modest fill and is hard to overdo. Start with it one to two meters from the subject.
• Silver returns much more light and can be used from further back, but it is harsh up close and makes people squint.
• Hold it at chest to face height. Fill from below the chin lights the face from underneath and looks unnatural.
• No reflector? Pale ground, a light wall, a white shirt or a sheet of card do the same job. Moving a person from dark grass onto pale paving visibly brightens the face.

Flash

Fill flash works where a reflector cannot: in wind, at a distance, or when the sun is too low to catch. Set flash exposure compensation to between -1 and -2 so the flash lifts the shadows without looking like the main light. Two limits apply. Outdoors at wide apertures the shutter speed often rises above the camera’s flash sync speed, commonly around 1/200 to 1/250; either stop down, use a neutral density filter, or turn on high-speed sync, which works at any shutter speed but cuts flash power sharply. And a small flash runs out of reach in bright sun beyond a few meters.

Aim for fill that sits one to two stops below the rim and background. If the front of the subject is as bright as the light behind, the picture stops looking backlit and starts looking flat.

Wondering how to lift the shadow side without losing the backlit glow? Fill flash covers balancing flash with daylight, and reflectors compares them with flash for fill light.

Flare and autofocus when the light points at the lens

Keeping contrast

Bright light striking the front element bounces around inside the lens. Some of it forms colored blobs in a line from the source; more of it spreads as a general haze that grays the shadows and weakens color. The second kind does the most damage to backlit pictures, because it is easy to miss on a small screen.

• Use the lens hood. It helps whenever the source is outside the frame.
• When the source is just out of frame and the hood is not enough, shade the front of the lens with a hand, hat or card held out of shot. Watch the viewfinder: the image snaps darker and richer when the shade is in the right place.
• Clean the front element. Dust and smears glow when lit from the front and add their own haze.
• Take off any filter you do not need. Each extra glass surface adds reflections.
• Hide the source behind the subject.

If you want flare for mood, let part of the sun into the frame and vary the aperture: wide open gives soft haze, small apertures give harder shapes and a starburst (see how to shoot a star-shaped flare).

Want to know where flare comes from, or how to keep it out? Lens flare explains how to prevent it or use it creatively, and lens hood covers what a hood blocks.

Getting focus

Autofocus works by finding contrast, and haze from flare removes it. The lens moves back and forth and fails to lock, or locks on the bright background. Things to try, in order:

1. Shade the lens with your hand while you focus, then take the hand away to shoot.
2. Use a single small focus point and put it on a hard edge at the subject’s distance: the line of the jaw against the collar, the rim of glasses, the edge of a leaf.
3. Turn on eye or subject detection if the camera has it, and confirm it has found the near eye and not the bright outline of the hair.
4. Focus once, then hold it. Back button focus makes this easy, because the shutter button no longer restarts focusing.
5. If it still hunts, switch to manual focus with the view magnified.

Stopping down to f/4 or f/5.6 gives a little margin for small focus errors that f/1.8 does not. More fixes are in common autofocus problems.

Fine-tuning a backlit raw file afterwards

Lower the highlights to bring back a bright sky or rim, lift the shadows to open the subject, and add a little contrast if the result looks flat. A dehaze control reduces some flare haze (see Dehaze in Lightroom), and a local brush brightens only the subject (see masking and selective adjustments in Lightroom). Lifting shadows a long way adds noise, so use editing to rescue a small miss, not to replace a correct exposure.

Silhouettes go the other way. Lower the blacks and shadows until the subject is solid black, add contrast, and adjust white balance warmer for a golden sky or cooler for a dusk mood. Zoom in along the outline and darken any gray patches where light leaked through. Crop tight enough that nothing at the frame edge competes with the shape.

Common mistakes

• A dark, muddy subject that is not quite a silhouette. The camera exposed for the background. Fix: decide. Add +1 to +2 stops for detail, or go darker for a true silhouette.
• The rim is lost against the sky. Fix: change your height or position so a dark background sits behind the lit edge.
• Burnt-out rim or leaf. The exposure was set for the shadows. Fix: meter the bright edge or reduce exposure until the highlight warning stops flashing on it.
• Gray, washed-out picture. Haze from flare. Fix: shade the lens, clean the glass, or hide the sun behind the subject.
• Exposure jumping between frames. An automatic mode reacting to changes in the background. Fix: lock the settings in manual.
• Flat, over-filled face. Too much flash or a silver reflector too close. Fix: reduce flash by a stop or move the reflector back.
• Focus on the background. Fix: single point on a contrasty edge, with the lens shaded while focusing.
• A silhouette that is a shapeless blob. Limbs touch the body, people overlap, or the subject faces the camera. Fix: turn the subject side on and open gaps in the outline.
• Orange skin at sunset. Fill reflected off warm ground or a gold reflector on top of warm light. Fix: use a white reflector and set white balance from the face.

Try this

Find a leafy branch, a houseplant on a windowsill or a clump of long grass with the sun or a bright window behind it, and take 15 minutes. First, shoot it as the camera meters it. Second, add +1, then +2 stops and watch the shadow side open up while the background burns out. Third, move so a dark background is behind the subject, meter the glowing leaves or edges, and go to -1: the rim and glow should now be the picture. Fourth, hold a sheet of white paper beside the lens to bounce light back and see how much it lifts the shadows. Finally, let the sun just clear the edge of the subject and shoot once with the lens unshaded and once shaded by your hand. Compare the last two frames at home for contrast.

Frequently asked questions

What is backlighting in photography?

It is any arrangement where the main light comes from behind the subject toward the camera. Depending on exposure, it gives a silhouette, a bright outline around the subject, a glow through thin materials, or a softly lit subject against a bright background.

What is the difference between backlight and rim light?

Backlight describes where the light is: behind the subject. Rim light describes one result of it: the bright outline along the subject’s edge, usually seen when the source is slightly off to one side and the background is dark.

How do I stop backlit subjects coming out too dark?

Meter the subject, not the scene: use spot metering on the face or add +1 to +2 stops of exposure compensation. If you also want to keep the background, add light to the subject with a reflector or fill flash.

What are the best settings for a silhouette?

Spot meter a bright part of the sky beside the sun, set that exposure in manual, and use f/8 to f/16 at a low ISO. Focus on the subject’s outline and turn the flash off. If any detail shows in the subject, reduce exposure until it goes black.

Should a silhouette be completely black?

A classic silhouette is, with no detail inside the shape. A partial silhouette that keeps a thin rim of light or a hint of detail can be just as strong. What matters is choosing one: a subject that is almost, but not quite, black looks like a mistake.

How do I create dramatic lighting with backlight?

Put a low sun or a single lamp behind the subject, choose a dark or shaded background, and set the exposure for the bright edge or the sky. Letting the shadow side fall dark gives the most contrast, and a little fill keeps some detail in it.

Is backlighting good for portraits?

Yes, especially with a low sun. The face is in soft, even shade with no squinting, and the hair and shoulders get a bright edge that lifts the person off the background. It needs careful exposure for the face and some control of flare.

How do I photograph a backlit subject with a phone?

Tap the subject to set focus and exposure there, then drag the brightness control up until the face looks right. Most phones also blend several exposures automatically in bright scenes, which recovers some of the background. Shade the lens with your free hand and wipe it first. For a silhouette, do the opposite: tap the bright sky and drag the brightness down until the subject turns black.