Silhouettes are striking and dramatic.  They are also fairly easy to create if you have the right conditions.  A good first try would be around dusk like the image below or by a window.  To make it simple for your first try, look for a situation where the sky behind the subject is brighter than the foreground. The background and foreground need to have dramatically different light values for you to easily create a silhouette. If you have this kind of difference in the foreground and the background, you will not need to do much more than point to the camera at the scene and click.



In a scene is like the one below, you may need to use your camera's built in spot meter. If you have never used the spot meter, the first step would be to pull out the scary manual and look up metering or metering modes in the index or table of contents. What the spot meter does is choose an exposure for you based on a single spot in the frame (the center) and not multiple points like your default meter will do. If you can point the spot at the background (which should be brighter than your subject) it will keep your subject dark thus creating a silhouette.


 

This image is not a full silhouette but it could have been depending on how my camera controls were set. If I had wanted him to be darker and the background to be even darker, I would have had to let less light into the camera by speeding up my shutter or opening up my aperture.

If the cameras auto settings are getting you close but not exactly where you want to be, you can always take the exposure that your meter gives you in the auto mode and switch to the manual mode and then adjust from there. Just move your f-stop or shutter speed up or down and experiment until you get it just right. The joy of digital is that you can shoot to your heart's content and just delete the ones that you don't like.

Some other tips for getting a good silhouette:
1. Choose something dramatic with a recognizable outline and shape for your silhouetted subject.
2. If your camera keeps trying to pop up the flash because of the low light in the scene, just turn it off. You may need to check with your manual to find how to turn off the flash.
3. Learn about the metering modes on your camera.
4. Bracket your exposure. This means shooting exposures on either side of the one that your camera gives you. In other words, if it gives you an exposure of (just an example) f8 at a shutter speed of 1/125, try adjusting the f-stop or shutter speed (choose one- not both) by one stop higher and one stop lower than the original exposure. You will end up with three images this way.

So, go play with your controls and see what you can come up with!  Remember to post  links to your examples in the comments below or on the Monday lesson Flickr Group.

I'd love to hear some ideas, suggestions, questions...what do you guys want to learn next?