I am currently in Jacksonville Florida for work, and decided to go to the beach and get some shots of the sunrise. The long grass created an amazing Silhouette with the Sun in the background. -Abhiram Bandaru
My brother in-law and I always talk about participating in the weekly gizmodo contest. Finally, this was out week to start. We had several sweet ideas, but they all involved busy highways or something similarly dangerous. For his shot, we actually wanted to capture some shots with my hands on fire. Unfortunately, none of those shots were very good. And my hands were too burnt to try it more than three times, and you only get a one or two shots per attempt (it get's real hot, real fast). So we took some shots just messing around, and this is the best of them. After my hands heal though, I want to go back and try the fire shots again, because now I know how to make it work. Number one, use a gel to light myself on fire, not rubbing alcohol. Alcohol works for quick stunts, not for posing and framing. Anyway, I'm glad we tried. It was fun learning how to take silhouettes. -Andrew King
So on the ride home from work after a stormy day, I notice in my rear-view that the clouds were breaking a bit to the west and the sunset was starting to light up the sky. I hurried to Seaside Park in Bridgeport with the ol' light house in mind. Made the short hike down the wet rocks of the jetty to get to the lighthouse and started taking pictures. Really my first serious shot taken with a DSLR, my new Canon 400D using a borrowed EF 28-80mm kit lens from my buddy's 35mm film Rebel (I'm saving up for a lens). Tripod, f/8.0, exposure 1.6 seconds, ISO400 at 77mm. -Brendan Dunne
The shot shows the Boğaziçi Köprüsü (bridge in Istanbul over the Bosporus). I have recently discovered the shooting challenge on Gizmodo and wanted to participate. So this shot is from my vacation in Istanbul last week.
Me and my Girlfriend went spontanously on a tourist tour through the Bosporus, and this bridge is the strongest landmark of Istanbul due to its special lighting which slowly changes color (for gadgets a meanwhile quite cheap effect, for a bridge it looks nevertheless impressive). So I wanted to capture this famous bridge. As my girlfriend and I share the camera, I told her to try a shot of the bridge, hoping she would see an angle I haven't spotted, and this is the outcome.
In the uncropped picture the bridge wasn't centered (thats why the ratio is be a bit strange) but with this very geometric form of the bridge the symmetry enhances the beauty of the shot. To me, this is the most impressive shot out of the 500 pics of the last week (though not the best since it is not typical for the region). -Damian Vogel
"Brand New Day"
I spent the first half of the week shooting silhouettes of inanimate objects against artificial light, and wasn't completely satisfied with any of my shots. So I began searching for a natural silhouette to present itself in my day to day life. Early one morning, my wife came into the room with our four month old, and began to open the drapes. As she approached a window, the lighting cast them in almost total darkness. I liked the simplicity of it. For some extra color, I added some sepia tone with iPhoto. -David G
This photo is the definition of serendipity. My wife owns a tour company here in St. Louis, and as such we occasionally entertain vendors, and today (Sunday) one vendor wanted to walk across the Mississippi River on the Eads Bridge (Built 1874, first steel bridge in the world) and take some photos of the Gateway Arch and the St. Louis skyline. Reminded of the recent shooting challenge that featured many shots of the NYC skyline, which I could see from where I grew up in New Jersey, I decided to take a few shots of my new hometown skyline with my trusted Droid X. The sun was setting behind the buildings, which made for a great "city at rest" shot, and the Tom Sawyer paddle wheeler passing added that Midwestern feel. Only then did I remember that this week's shooting challenge topic was silhouettes. A slight brightness correction later, and I've made my first entry into the shooting challenge. -Declan Rutan
Coolidge Park in Chattanooga, TN had tethered Hot air balloon rides on a cool crisp Saturday morning. Woke up early to get some shoots and ride the balloons. They brought the balloons back that evening too. Got some great shoots, but no real silhouettes. Was never able to get the whole hot air balloon as a silhouette. Too much light comes through them. Still made for some great pictures! -Diego Aguilera
This was one of those nights where I was doing last minute 365 photo project work and decided to try out the shooting challenge. So I set up a red flashlight my roommate's mom sent us for some reason, and played around to see what shapes I could get out of various things. I had some hand shots that were actually in focus, but for some reason I liked this one the best. -Emily Turner
The shot can have multiple meanings of an "irrational fear" or that of a big company or government controlling the little guy through fear. But really, I just thought the idea of a small guy with a giant coming at him was cool... -Gideon Montoya
We were at my boyfriend's new office space and his girls were running around looking out all the windows. I was there taking pictures of the new space and with the huge windows all around overlooking the city, I thought I would try for a silhouette picture. I put the girls up on the ledge and had them streak some goofy poses, but the one where they were just checking out the city and not paying attention to the camera came out the best. Tweaked the contrast/brightness a bit in Photoshop, mostly cause they were wearing white or light colored clothes and the light was coming through the material. -Gretchen Pitluk
We were down in the Coromandel region of New Zealand, We are just coming out of an awful winter down here but today the sun was shining and the temp was hot - first proper day of summer yeayah.. Was around 6 in the evening, Pulled off the road for a smoke, took a wander through the bush and came across a choice waterhole. I was down the bank having a smoke while my mates rigged an impromptu rope swing. As soon as the first one jumped I grabbed my cam and shot this straight off... loving the karate-kick action going on. Was a mint break in the road trip. -James Pendergrast
This is our new beta Ralph. Thought he had a pretty cool silhouette, so we set up a speedlight on the opposite side and fired it wirelessly. I wanted to clean up the smudges on the glass SOOOO bad, but rules are rules. Shot from a tripod. -Jason Barnetts
Shot with Droid Incredible using the program "Vignette" under the ToyCamera B&W setting and the 16:9 bordered attribute. Was riding back from a hike with my girlfriend and her two girls. I've always loved power lines against the sky and tree line. Great, harsh juxtaposition between nature and manmade-ness. No other changes or mods made outside of the contest requirements. -Jonathan Keys
1" shutter and f/32 aperture with ISO 200. Struggled to get proper lighting conditions so I just put a white jpeg on my TV and started taking pictures in front of it. Level adjustments done using iPhoto. -Jorge Jimenez
I was fortunate enough to be in Utah this week, and as I was strolling back to my hotel from breakfast, I just happened to catch some hot air balloons taking off in the distance. Luckily, I had taken my Canon SX210 with me, and snapped this. -Juan Ozuna
My picture is of the cityscape, taken from my balcony. I took my shot with my Canon Mark 2 5D. I believe I was shooting at 200 ISO. I do know that I bracketed a number of different aperture ranges (all well below the metering requirements), toying with the different reds that were coming out of the sunset. -Kelvin Chen
The picture was captured as my family came to visit me on the North Shore of Oahu. My mom being the horse lover that she is befriended a lady riding her horse down the beach one day, and somehow convinced her that she needed a horse-riding partner! They went out for a sunset ride on the beach the next day and I seized the opportunity to take this silhouette photo. Used Adobe Lightroom to help darken the foreground. -Kitt Turner
We've taken Silhouette photos in front of Projectors before and gotten some cool rainbow effects, so I wanted to try and recreate that this time around. The subject I used in the foreground is a little wooden artist's model. I couldn't quite capture the colors and lens flare that I wanted, but I thought it was interesting how the light shaped it's outline, and how the blue looks around the helmet-like head. -Mailani Souza
This photo was taken on Sunday afternoon, in the gravel parking lot behind Maloney's Tavern in Tucson, AZ. Possibly the Jeep, as well as the Gremin parked nearby, were abandoned by inebriated patrons the night before... regardless the barbed wire and AT&T tower behind the vehicle seemed to lend a nice aura to the scene. -Micah Scorcio
I used my Nikon D40 with the kit lens. This was shot at 1/640s at f/13. The ISO was 200 and I nearly went blind from the sun. I converted the RAW file in Photoshop and there you have it. -Peter Berg
The story behind this is one of accident. I went back to the old Alma Mater for homecoming to take some photos of a friends band. I was changing lenses on my camera and being the rookie I am and the time crunch I was in didn't turn off the camera first. I was holding it and snapped a picture while removing the lens. the lens was about 1 inch away from the camera. I thought it looked pretty wicked so I decided to submit it, not your traditional silhouette, but more abstract. The subject is one of my old college roommates who was at the show with me. -Ryan Frank
The first thing that came to my mind when i read about this challenge is the black-on-blue silhouette action scene in Kill Bill Volume1 (Showdown At The House Of Blue Leaves). I wanted the silhouette staged and found the animal planet toy figures in my daughter's bin. I propped an old chart against the wall and set the white balance to white fluorescent to get the blue background. Then i removed the shades from a night lamp, wrapped the CFL bulb in a blue cloth and set it in front of the chart. Placed the animal figures on an end table, about a foot in front of the light source. Played with various setting and finally settled on AV mode F/2.0 to get the desired effect, mostly from trial and error. It was totally fun, thanks Giz for the learning experience! -Senthil Kumar
Was a really nice, calm night. Just after the sun went down. I was out taking pictures for this challenge. I really didn't give this shot much hope. But, with a little tweaking, it turned out. I made sure it was entirely black throughout the silhouette. Except for the lights along the boardwalk (and a few other city lights). They were consistent with the silhouette and made the picture a little more interesting so I called it good. -Shawn Nicholas
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