A silhouette is the blurred edge’s opposite: it is defined by its solidity, its opacity–by the razor’s edge of its contrast with whatever lies beyond.
Silhouettes define and anchor spaces and places.
My favorite silhouette doesn’t exist in a photograph, but I will be able to see it forever: the last time he was able to walk out of our house, my husband Jim stood and leaned on our children and friends, outlined fully within an enormous orange perigee moon that enveloped our portion of the world.
I can–and often do–aim my camera at enormous swaths of sky, but I end up with glorified color swatches: squares of swirled and striated colors without clues to attach them to the experience of being in a given place.
If, however, there’s a silhouette out front, I know exactly where I was when I took that picture. I can call back to my senses the feeling of sub-zero fingers on my conductive camera, the frustration of buzzing mosquitos as I aimed at sunset along the shore, the smell and crackle of late autumn leaves as I traversed a path facing West.
However, although solidity is their hallmark, silhouettes often reveal something that isn’t there at all.
A puppy’s silhouette, cast by winter sunlight onto snow, can distorted and enlarge him into a King Among Beagles. Silhouettes against spring petals can add texture and heft to open flowers.
Sometimes silhouettes transmit a mood: the peace of pastel skies beyond leaves not yet crisped, curled, and unmoored by winter; the energy of swiftly moving crowds of clouds beyond a bridge’s cables; the slightly sinister feeling engendered (at least among Hitchcock fans) by birds congregating above en masse against endless gray.
Night’s lights can imprint onto walls silhouettes of what is no longer there, like the reverse image of a film negative, or the momentarily searing after-images lit by photographic flashbulbs of yore.
Gone like the silhouette there by the bed where she undressed
Gone like the candlelight where we made love so sweet and bright
Gone like the one last turn she took before Atlanta burned
Gone like everything I’ll earn, gone, gone away
My 7-yr old loves sunsets (she says that’s an actual color!) and we both think your first image is soooo pretty! Lovely collection!
Thank you–and I think you’re extra lucky to have a daughter who sees “sunset” as a color….why not?
Magnificent silhouette gallery!
Thank you–I didn’t realize quite how often I go for the silhouette until this photo prompt.
You had me at hello on that first photo. Looks like one of your quilts. Magnificent.
That’s taken at the cemetery where I found “The Best Seats in the House” (which got its own post) many sunsets ago. It puts on an amazing show most nights, and I’ve always been the only one there taking pictures, oddly enough.
Thanks to you, I find myself staring at the sky more often than not. Looking upward rather than down is a more expansive perspective… I think of Jim and miss him too.
yep that furst photo is very very kewl 🙂 … 🙂
Thanks. One of my favorite rainbows 🙂
Simply amazing!
Hi, Marie! You need to come for some Portsmouth sunsets—they’re a little different than the Post Road ones, which can be spectacular on their own.
Absolutely beautiful…Love how the branches stand out between the layers of the sunset clouds 🙂
Aren’t sunset colours amazing? Sometimes if I didn’t actually take the shot I wouldn’t even believe them. Lovely photos, and I especially love the birds on the weather vane. 😀
Beautiful! And I don’t even like silhouettes!
You make me stop and think again.
A wonderful set of silhouettes, but the first large one of the tree and variegated colors of sunset is my most FAV!! 😀