I've written several times about how I believe backlighting is the nicest quality light for portraits.  I've received lots of questions about this.  In particular:  how do I meter shots like this? and do I use reflectors or fill flash?

Let's look at a typical example taken at a recent family portrait session. 5D, 70-200mm @200mm, ISO 400, f6.3, 1/320 sec.

Here are some basic principles I think about when taking a shot like this:

• Backlighting looks nicest when front lighting looks the worst. In other words, I think it works best when the sun is relatively high in the sky. The shot above was taken about 11am.  At 6pm or 8am, I'm more likely to use front light.

• No, I don't use reflectors or fill flash!  You won't need it. When the sun is high in the sky, plenty of light will bounce off the ground, reflect off buildings and trees, etc.

• I don't usually use any exposure compensation either. Just shoot my normal aperture priority mode, using evaluative (matrix for your Nikonians) metering.  

• If possible, combine backlighting with a dark background. The halo of highlights around your subjects will really pop against a dark background.  

When would I use some sort of reflector or fill flash?  Only when the sun gets lower, in the early evening.

In the image below, I was shooting Heather (a fitness model) about an hour before sunset.  I had my assistant hold a reflector to light Heather's face. At this time of day, she would have been drastically underexposed without the reflector. Without the reflector I would have had to use massive amounts of positive exposure compensation, which would have washed out the image.  

That's it. Pretty easy, huh?  No special tricks. Just put the sun behind your subject and fire away.