How I Shoot: Making Silhouettes with @wacamera
How I Shoot is a series where we ask Instagrammers to tell us about the process behind the making of their photos and videos. For more of Keiko’s whimsical silhouette photos, follow @wacamera on Instagram.
For commercial photographer Keiko Kosaka (@wacamera) of Osaka, Japan, Instagram has been a place to enjoy, explore and evolve her unique style of creativity. “The one thought that’s always with me is that I want to share mysterious and beautiful images,” she says, “and I say images because a lot of my work contains prominent editing and is not just purely photography.”
Keiko creates scenes from a fantasy world made of vibrant colors, precisely timed lighting and playful shadows. She especially loves featuring silhouettes in her work, often having her closest Instagram friends pose in her photos. “All the necessary conditions have to align perfectly in order to capture a clear-cut silhouette, and it’s always a challenge.”
Here are Keiko’s tips for capturing clean and compelling silhouettes:
Camera
Nikon D700
Vantage Point
“To create a silhouette, there needs to be light. I always find myself thinking about the direction of the light source, whether it’s natural or artificially created light. With natural light, the sun is moving throughout the day, and you’ll just have to learn the angle from which to shoot to get a clean silhouette for each specific time of the day.”
Shooting
“I consciously select a simple landscape to pose my subjects so that the silhouettes don’t blend into the scenery—like walls and skies. I’m also very careful about how my models pose, such as the direction they’re faced, the position of their bodies and the props they use. Everything has to be perfectly composed so that people can still identify what the silhouettes actually are.”
Post-Processing
“All of my editing is done on iPhone and iPad. The most important thing for me is that the silhouette details are clean. I use Snapseed (iOS and Android) for basic edits and ArtStudio (iOS) to fill in colors. On Instagram, my personal favorite is the Hudson filter.”
