Silhouettes in Redwall Cavern: 2-step tutorial

Yoga Pose Silhouette from the massive Redwall Cavern

Yoga, photography, limestone, water and sand all mix together nicely at Redwall Cavern, Grand Canyon.  Here in the largest sandbox on the planet, the sound of the river permeates everything.  Sand between my toes gives off warmth.  It feel like the center of a natural perfect universe.  These feelings inspire contemplation and some personal stretching to reach towards the natural within.  MyKaela assumes the Natarajasana, Lord of the Dance, pose with grace and understated power.  Beautiful.  Peaceful.

Photographing silhouettes is easy if you follow two simple rules:
1.  Expose for the background.
2.  Focus on the foreground.

Easy, right?

It is, in manual mode.  Camera modes automatically assume you want to expose and focus on the same object.  You as a photographer need to take over the exposure part and let the camera still do the focusing.  This is accomplished in manual mode.  Set the ISO, aperture and shutter speed.  Get the background nicely exposed and forget about the dark near object. 

Then focus on your object.  She'll be dark, maybe with no details at all but that's the point of a silhouette.  The borders, the shape are the interesting point here, not the shadowy parts.