re: #75 goddamnedfrank

Neither for me. The effect and most frequent purpose of photographing a subject in silhouette is to strip it of all information indicating individual identity, to make it into a generic stand in for type. In that way I see the technique as generally depersonalizing.

Yep. Very common in stock photos used by the media over a wide range of story types.

Example (scary athlete shadow):

Image: p00r0ztm.jpg