Backlighting

I recently attended a training session by David Guy Maynard on using speed lights for location portraiture.  Fascinating topic!  He brought along a couple of professional models that we photographed after his presentation.

The problem was that twenty or so of us were standing side-by-side using our camera-mounted lights.  

How boring.  So I decided to crank up my ISO, turn down my flash, and move to the side so I could use his modeling light to backlight the subject.  Much better!

 Needless to say, I prefer these shots. Backlighting certainly makes for more interesting images.