How to compensate for backlight?

I received a comment and question from Mohammed via his blog about back lighting and, how to properly shoot with strong back lighting. I've posted part of my reply to him below.

"...Back light can be tricky. To control it depends on what your subject is or what you are trying to shoot. If it is a landscape and the background is a bright sky the camera's meter will read the overall brightness of the scene and stop down or adjust to a smaller aperture and typically make the foreground too dark.

One can use your camera's spot metering setting and meter the foreground only to compensate. This will make the foreground come out okay but your sky or background might be too hot or bright.

Thus, many photographer's use what is called a neutral density or graduated neutral density filter attached to their lens for landscapes and other similar subjects. The filter lessen the effects of a back lighted background such as a cloudless sky. I will post a link and some more information on my blog for you to read...".
In my example (below) I metered for the sky in order to achieve a silhouette effect.

Click on the link to read more about this technique.

http://www.photography.com/articles/taking-photos/backlighting/