Elle Beth silhouette pics and BTS video (Patreon)

Normally if you think silhouette you think a dark model against a lighter background (a couple of people on a beach and a sunset in the background). 

The background is a large part of the image. 

I like to explore new avenues so I wanted to twist silhouettes around a bit: I wanted the model to be the main theme and the background to be white. I suppose you could think of it more like backlit.

I had been intrigued by this since I saw some early Aubade Lingerie ad's in the '90'ies. I have dabbled with variations while shooting lingerie (below) - but on this lingerie becomes a driving part. Still interesting that you can have white underwear become so much lighter than the skin when doing it right.

When you shoot nudes and opt for no background, it's all about shape.

Shooting silhouettes this way present some unique challanges, and frankly I love challenges:

• You want the light to "smooth" its way around the model
• You want good definition on shapes
• You DON'T want light on the front which is hard as the model is on a white background.

That means you want a backlit scene, with the light relatively close to the model - especially if you are in a room with a low ceiling. A larger setup lit by lamps would scatter light everywhere which again would leave the front mic lighter and with less definition.

So I opted for setting up a Hi-Lite with two strobes shooting in from the sides to make a relatively even white background.  Then I wanted a white acrylic plate in front as white reflective backgrounds have a somewhat special treat: Reflections are more important than shadows. and I wanted the reflection to play a part.

The trick with placing the light really close to the model is that light diminishes by the square root of the distance.

Or in English every time you double the distance the light has to travel you reduce it to 1/4 in intensity, or 2 F-stops less. So by having the light right next to the model there be a fast falloff which means less will be reflected by the white background. The white foam cores on the sides are to mimic what the hi-lite does above the model, give definition on arms, legs etc.

Now a couple of problems as you will see in the video and the raw images below. 

The Hi-Lite is too small really and I had problems elevating the acrylic sufficiently even so I had to do all kinds of tricks to make it relatively horizontal - and it it's not there will be weird reflections..

The easy solution would be to place the acrylic on the floor but then I would have had a dark line from the Hi-Lite background, and I was afraid that might interfere with the reflection.

If you like it, great, but personally I have one problem with it: Since I'm shooting a bit from above with a medium lens the reflection of the leg that are pointing up is pointing too much up. 

It would have required a larger acrylic plate to remedy that and shooting from alower vantage point. But I play whatever cards I have and make do as best I can. Circumstances will never be perfect so sometimes it's just about trying anyway.