We're up to challenge number seven of Emerge, Silhouetto. It's another of our personal favourites and it seems we're not alone! Our challengers created some incredible silhouettes for this challenge and we had a hard time narrowing the submissions down to our top ten!

Silhouettes eliminate textural detail and black out facial expressions, relying instead on the pose and body language of the dog to tell the story.

The simplicity of a silhouette helps the subject stand out as the feature of the image, but the lack of detail in the shadows also creates a sense of mystery, leaving the finer details to the viewer's imagination and allowing them to create their own story.

This top ten really does include a lot of storytelling images and we've loved looking at them, so congratulations to the photographers who created them.

Here they are, in no particular order.

Charlotte & Craig 🐶 📸 ✨

Chantal Levesque | Chantal Levesque Photo

What a different take on the Silhouetto challenge brief! Well composed and very atmospheric. The use of backlight to highlight the dog and separate it from the background is excellent and it also catches the falling snow and adds to the feeling overall.

Christel Wellens | Fotografie Christel Wellens

This is a wonderful candid moment of a dog just being a dog and sniffing around! The outline is well defined and the warmth in the sky is wonderful.

Jana Davis | J's Photography

Great action and great shapes make this a really successful silhouette. The dip in the foliage frames the dog really nicely too.

Jillian Turner | Gone To The Dogs Photography

A very clearly defined outline of the subject and a composition that includes elements that are reminiscent of an old Japanese ink drawing.

Megan Purtell | Megan Purtell Photography

Beautiful posing, wonderful use of negative space and a pretty epic sky make this silhouette worthy of its top ten placing.

Nancy Paynter

This is not only an excellent silhouette, but a fantastic action shot too. Well timed, great point in the dog stride, the light coming through the splashes, all work together for a lovely end result. 

Pauliina Saarinen | Pauliina Saarinen Photography

Silhouettes are about creating well defined shapes and this image has a well defined dog and owner. Great posing, a really nice composition. The headland adds to the sense of place.

Sarah Jones | Mucky Pup Photography

This shows off the dog perfectly, but not only that, it shows off what it's doing as well as the breed's typical behaviour too. The reflection of the sun highlighting the tension in one paw is just perfection.

Tiffany Wilson | Tiffany Wilson Pet Photography

This is a really interesting shot and the introduction of the prop elevating the dog on a platform to perform its best trick is really clever thinking.

Yvonne Van Leeuwen | Animal Design Fotografie

Wonderful composition, the shape of the do from the tip of the tail to the nose flows really nicely. The three birds are a wonderful touch too!

Emerge is the second series in our Unleashed Challenge courses and is made up of 12 challenges over 6 months. It’s open to anyone who has completed our first course in the series, Embark.

So much more than just a challenge, the Unleashed Challenges are an invaluable educational resource that will help you build up a go-to list of shots to help create variety in your work. Designed for anyone to be able to complete whether you just want to photograph your own dog or you are a professional pet photographer.

If you'd like to know more head over here to register your interest and we'll send you all the details when enrolment for Embark next opens in April 2024.