Today’s quick tutorial is all about breaking one of those “rules” you learned when first starting out; namely, that you should strive to shoot with the sun at your back whenever possible. That’s because this approach delivers predictable results, when your ultimate goal should be to capture unique images that stand out from the crowd.
The topic at hand is the emotive power of backlit imagery, and instructor Martin Castein provides three of his favorite methods with illustrative examples in barely eight minutes. He’s a London-based portrait photographer whose popular YouTube channel boasts 61K enthusiastic subscribers and more than five million views.
Despite his penchant for people pictures, everything you’ll learn is equally appropriate for all popular genres of outdoor photography as well. Castein puts it like this: “Learning to do backlit photography is really worthwhile. And it doesn’t matter what your subject is—whether it’s people, buildings, or landscapes.”
This style of shooting contributes to expressive photos that can be moody and dramatic, with a variety of uncommon looks and interesting effects. Best yet, Castein says that backlit photos “edit really well” if you understand the straightforward adjustments required.
One of Castein’s favorite backlighting methods involves what he calls an off-axis or “edge-line” look that he insists is the most forgiving and easiest to work with—especially for inexperienced photographers. He explains the concept, describes when and when not to use it, and reveals simple techniques that get the job done to perfection.
Castein provides the following reminder before demonstrating two more enchanting looks: “Most of the time there’s an extremely bright light source shinning directly into the camera, and this creates exposure problems like blown-out backgrounds or skies. But backlighting doesn’t mean that this light source—typically the sun—must always appear within the frame.
The episode progresses with two additional techniques that can be employed when shooting in Manual Mode with Auto ISO, Aperture Priority, or even Program mode while “letting the camera figure it out.”
We encourage you to visit Castein’s popular YouTube channel once the lesson concludes and take advantage of his wide variety of instructional videos.
And don’t miss the earlier tutorial we featured with another experienced instructor who demonstrates how to make attention-grabbing nature, landscape, and wildlife photographs by perfecting your image-cropping skills.
