A graphic silhouette

Yesterday was the first day of my Frog and Reptile workshop. For this silhouette of a Chinese cave gecko, I showed my group how you could backlight a large leaf to dramatically focus on the attractive and bold graphic design of the reptile. It simulates shooting from beneath the leave at midday when the sun is illuminating the leaf. I placed a Lume cube LED light panel behind the leaf, and that provided enough light to hand hold the camera. My settings were 1/60, f/18, and 2000 ISO. Some of the participants used f/5.6 and a much lower ISO setting, but I wanted to ensure that the entire plane of the leaf was sharp throughout as well as the gecko from head to tail. That required a small lens aperture. To help maintain complete depth of field, I stood over the leaf and held the camera such that the plane of the digital sensor (what we used to call the 'film plane') was perfectly parallel with the plane of the leaf.