The mental images conjured up by this technique are striking and disparate: everything from pastoral landscapes reminiscent of Turner to Nazi propaganda photographs of storm troopers. Some are characterized by delicate transillumination (especially of leaves or hair); others, by dramatic contrasts of light and shade.
The terms against the light, contre-jour, and indeed back lit are, however, somewhat misleading, implying as they do a picture taken with the light directly behind the subject. The majority of successful contre-jour pictures are more side lit than back lit, with the
Equally unexpectedly, the actual contrasts of light and shade are often quite modest: otherwise, the picture becomes a silhouette or semi-silhouette. The brightness range of the principal subject may well be as little as two stops (4 : 1) and seldom exceeds three or at most four stops (8 : 1 or 16 : 1). The widespread adoption (and automation) of fill-flash, illuminating areas in shadow, has made it possible to shoot against the light in circumstances that would formerly have been difficult or impossible; but, equally, fill-flash is all too often overdone, leaving the principal subject as a cardboard cut-out against its background.
Most (though far from all) successful against-the-light pictures throw the background more or less into shadow, again in the interests of avoiding silhouettes. Strong shadows and ‘hand of God’ lighting (beams shown up by mist or dust) can be enormously effective, but probably account for a relatively small proportion of all successful contre-jour shots. Surprisingly often, the overall contrast range of the lighting is fairly small, whether the subject is a misty morning or sunset or a studio portrait: in the latter case, it is all too easy to burn out highlights in which there should be texture and detail.
A final technical point which is not immediately obvious is that many of the best contre-jour pictures of yore were taken with lenses that had, by modern standards, very high flare levels. This was obviously the case in the days before coating, but even into the 1960s many fast lenses still exhibited plenty of veiling flare. Trying to replicate the contre-jour effects of the past, using ultra-contrasty modern lenses, can therefore be impossible. A cheap zoom, or an elderly prime lens, may prove more successful; or, for more control, Tiffen's Ultra Contrast screens (which despite their name reduce contrast, rather than increasing it) are widely used in Hollywood for contrast control in contre-jour lighting. Although deep lens shades were always recommended in the past for contre-jour photography, and although they still remain very useful for most such shots, there may be times when it is best to remove the shade in the interests of reducing contrast.
— Roger W. Hicks
