backlight

plural backlights

1. uncountableLight shining from a source behind the object of interest or attention.

   Egg candling uses backlight to look for chick embryos.

   1 more example

   The backlight from the sunset cast the pier and the crowd in silhouette.

   1. countableA spotlight that illuminates a photographic subject from behind.
   2. uncountableLight that is behind a photographic subject.

      If I do use backlight, it's not to separate the subject from the background; I use it to set a psychological mood, or to create a look.

      2006, Michael Grecco, Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait, Amphoto Books, →ISBN, page 73

   3. countableA light attached to an LCD display.
2. countableThe rear window of a motor car.

present singular third person backlights · participle present backlighting · participle past backlighted · past backlighted · participle past backlit · past backlit

1. transitiveTo illuminate something from behind.

   Backlit by the setting sun, an Avanti West Coast Class 390 Pendolino crosses the River Ribble at Preston on December 30 2022.

   2023 March 22, “Modern Images”, in RAIL, page 61, photo caption

   1 more example

   It offers few subtleties, but those can be effective, as when the chorus is backlighted in the rear of the auditorium to produce an ominous play of shadows onstage.

   2007 June 2, James R. Oestreich, “Strange, Faraway Fantasies of Hell and Paradise”, in New York Times