Silhouettes Portfolio Planning

This maybe one of the hardest area for me to get right for my final portfolio as there will be a lot of factors that need to be right to get a good image. The main factors I need to get right are as follows:

• Lighting (Sunrise and Sunsets would give great dramatic backgrounds)
• Animal shape (is it easily recognisable such as a swan, as I do not think a silhouette of a robin would work as it could be confused with quite a few small birds)
• Clear background (may need to get low down as the silhouette needs to be against a sky or water

I need to get all of these right to get a good silhouette and that will be the challenge. As for equipment I will need to use the following:

• Canon 400d
• Canon zoom lens
• Canon wide angle lens
• Tripod
• Monopod

I will also need to get up really early to capture a sunrise and this would limit me to branston waterpark as the zoo does not open till 10am. I will need to play about with this area of photography to see what I am able to capture and speak to steve to get some ideas for improvement.