Creative sun flare

I'm still having a hard time purposely shooting into the sun to get creative flare. What works? What doesn't?

I really do dig number 3.. When you are trying to create the sun flare a part of composition to get that dreamy look you really have to nail it. If not it destroys the picture.. Its one of those treading on thin ice sort of things..

Great job none the less

I like 3 but I kinda like 2 more. Sorry , I don't really know how to use flare to enhance a picture, but I can offer opinions!

From what been able to capture, seems like you have to very near to the Sun or at it at a particular angle. I only have 2 very good shots like this, so can't say much more than that I guess.

1&2 nice; 3,4 good not great

I like the jump/pose in 3 and wish it had the same flare as 2. You did pretty good I think.

Q

I like the girl's expression in #4 but #3 is my favourite. I think you achieved your goal in both shots.

I like the blowing dandelions shot but I can't help thinking that the tiniest bit of fill in flash or use of a reflector would have improved the image.

Thanks everyone, the input was really helpful! What's frustrating me the most though is how varied and unpredictable the flare turns out. In the first and second ones, all I got was rimlight and I had the color cast on the others. I've been trying to replicate the flare in this photo that I took a month or two ago but had no luck:

If it's grainy, it's not an ISO problem. It'd help if you gave us a 100% crop.

SuperHuman21 wrote in post #10199848
If it's grainy, it's not an ISO problem. It'd help if you gave us a 100% crop.

http://farm2.static.fl​ickr.com …96739259_23ffee​e262_o.jpg

I guess it's not so much grainy as a loss of detail... the background looks fine but when you look at her face, there is so little definition!

I like all of them but what do you mean by "creative" flare? People are creative; flare is just a phenomenon.