Desert AirBnB, One Night, One Silhouette

58mm, 100sec, F22, ISO 50 - Living out my cowboy dreams.

This past weekend my wife, our dog, and I rented a converted bus Airbnb — complete with an oven and a tiny shower — and escaped to the desert for a night. My main goal was time with family, but I couldn’t resist carving out an evening for photography. With only one night to work, I focused on getting the silhouetted cowboy-hat look I’d been picturing.

I’ve been shooting photos and video for a long time, but have hardly ever done dramatic silhouettes. The key is to point the camera towards the light: expose for the sunset and everything in the foreground — myself included — will go dark.

Shooting alone made things tricky: setting up lights, triggering the camera, and composing the frame while playing the subject is a slow, fiddly process. I tried a couple of different looks until the rim light and hat shape read the way I wanted against the sunset. After a day in the desert I also learned the hard way that my sensor needed cleaning — plenty of dust spots that required cleanup in post.

All the dots are where I had dust spots! I’m going to take the old girl in for a cleaning!

I also made a few frames for a longer-term self-portrait series using my Westcott FJ400, but I’m keeping those back for a gallery or the finished project release. For now I’m sharing the silhouetted cowboy-hat shots. I do wish I had more variety but got singularly focused and lost light fast!