We’d like to think that the word silhouette is derived from some poetic concept created by the French. But, in fact, Étienne de Silhouette was an 18th century French author and politician. No one really knows why he gave his name to the dark outline of something against a brighter background.
Whatever the reason, the silhouette became a technique used for portraits, and was also used in art, photography, advertising, and fashion. A silhouette is shape and form, stated in its most simple way, broken down to its barest elements. Some say that a silhouette is too simple — it leaves out the important details, becomes a caricature or sterotype of itself. But the best silhouettes powerfully convey the details despite the lack of them. By showing us only the outline, we are free to imagine the rest of the story.
Here are some of the wonderful silhouettes that that members of our ViewFinders community have shared with us this month:
Many thanks to all our amazing ViewFinders followers! We love the work you’re doing and are so happy to be able to feature your work here.
The next theme is a little more difficult — we’re going to explore EMOTION. With all that is going on in the world and in our own lives, there are days when we can experience a full range of emotions from joy to sorrow, anger to forgiveness, nostalgia for the past to hope for the future. How do you convey emotion in your photographs? Can you do it without showing a face, or a person?
Our next community post is June 16th, so share your EMOTION photographs on Instagram by June 13th for an opportunity to be featured. And don’t forget to tag your photos #viewfindersio and #emotion.
See you soon.
—lucy
2 Comments
Comments are closed.
Such gorgeous shots! I always have trouble with silhouettes and these are beautifully inspiring. Thank you for sharing!
I like the idea that we can get more detail from something that shows us less. Lovely images. Thanks for having mine there.