Thanks for your comment, glad you found the articles helpful. Back lighting is tricky when it comes to getting the correct exposure. As you say, if you have light coming from behind the subject you will often get a very bright background with a dark subject. The key is to take your exposure reading off the subject without including the background. Normally I use spot meter mode to do this. Another way to do it is to place a grey card in front of the meter so it is lit similar to the subject and use that reading to set your exposure.

In my journalism days I would sometimes take a reading off of my hand … I’d hold my hand so the light was hitting it the same way it was hitting my subject, then take a reading and set my exposure from that. It was very helpful in tricky back light or side light conditions.

For the flower and bee shot, the black background was already there … the shot was in a park that was landscaped with dark, near black walls behind the flowers so as long as I shot at the correct low angle I got the black wall and not the bright sky where the light was coming from.

To me, “seeing the light” is a bit difficult, but your article Using Light in Photography explains very well how one can learn to see it in an easy manner.

If you don’t mind me asking (and please excuse my ignorance), in your Flower & Bee photo you used back lightning. How did you accomplish getting a black background? (I’m assuming the blurry green parts were in the foreground). I’m sure if I had tried that shot, I would have ended up with a really bright background… This is how I imagine my shot:

Since the light source is behind the subject its front would be dark, so when I meter the light of the subject, I would have to decrease the shutter speed (or increase my f stop), hence the background would be more bright than the subject itself, am I correct?

As you can tell from my comment, I’m a total beginner…

Again, thank you very much for your helpful articles and tips!