As I learn to take specific types of photos and develop my skills, I'd like to take as many opportunities as I can to explain to others how I accomplished a certain look. I like this photo not because it looks great (I think you'll agree that it's nothing special) but because it was a major success for me in learning a couple new skills. First, I was trying to purposefully create lens flare.
Lens flare isn't usually referred to as a good thing but when you control it and use it as part of the overall intent of the image it can work wonders. I won't dig into what causes lens flare but if you're interested you can check out this
link from wikipedia. Ever taken a picture of some friends in the middle of the day with the sun right behind them? I bet most of those pictures had big bright circles right over your friends' faces that totally ruined the picture. That's lens flare.
We can use the same example to discuss the other teaching lesson in this picture. With that afternoon, backlit shot of your friends, did they often show up as nothing but a dark silhouette? The reason is that your camera usually takes into account the entire scene to determine how bright it needs to be. When so much of the scene is filled with the bright mid-day sun, your friends are going to be significantly underexposed. The result, silhouettes.
