I know some people place a piece of white paper over the bulb of the
flash to diffuse the brightness somewhat - or you could take the flash
off the camera and fire it in a different direction - you would have to
experiment I think.

Cat
http://snaps.catbc.com

I'm not convinced that flash was used at all; if you look at the shadow of
the nose, you will see that it indicates a single 'point' source of light
high up to the viewer's right - likewise the shadow of the chin.  This is
consistent with sunlight on a clear day, as is the sky in the background
(although that may have been 'manipulated' of course).  

The sunlit tanned or brown skin and the blue sky are both close to a 'mid
tone' photographically speaking, so the exposure was probably not difficult
to assess.  (1/500 sec at f/8 on ISO 100, or 1/250 if ISO 50, would be my
guess).

If the subject is 'washed away' by your flash, then it is 'over-exposed';
either reduce the output from the flash (with a diffuser, for instance - a
clean white tissue works well, or bounce it from a card or a pale wall or
ceiling - which also improves modelling considerably); or use a smaller
lens aperture.

If your flash and/or camera tries to use 'auto-exposure' for your flash
shots, then you have to apply the same manual adjustments as you do for
auto-exposure with natural light.  For example, if the subject is small
and bright, such as a face against a dark background, auto-exposure on its
own is likely to give over-exposure; so either stop down the lens or use
the +/- or brighter/darker 'exposure compensation' control of your camera.
Some cameras, even quite expensive ones, lack a compensation over-ride to
'make it darker' or 'exposure -'; a false economy, in my opinion.

The main difference is that with the light coming from a flash-gun, even a
bright surface behind your subject will be a dark surface in the picture
if it is significantly further away than the face, simply because it is
'out of range' of the flash.  

Fixed flash output and exposure setting by the lens aperture based on the
flash 'guide number' can be a lot more reliable than auto-exposure.
Practice helps, and 'bracketing' if in doubt  :))

I agree with Whiskers that the picture you reference may not have used
flash at all.

I'm sure you will agree that even without a flash, it takes some
practice and experimentation to learn your equipment and to get the
results you want. Among many other things, you have to figure out how
to handle challenging lighting situations.

There's nothing magical about adding flash to the mix. In fact, it is
a significant complication. There are techniques you need to learn to
make flash work for you just as you had to learn techniques to deal
with non-flash situations. The details vary with the camera and flash
you use. Camera settings and flash settings interact in sometimes
complex ways. There's just no substitute for learning the basics from
a good book or class and then taking a lot of pictures until you
develop a "feel" for how everything operates.

In other words, without a flash, you have to learn how to use your
camera's features to get the result you want. With a flash, you have
more options to tweak. For example, your equipment may have special
flash modes for fill-in lighting. You can try diffusers and filters.
Many systems offer flash compensation that is more-or-less independent
of the exposure compensation on your camera.

With my particular setup, when I want fill flash, I use the fill flash
mode on my strobe. If I just want a "little" fill-in, I often use a
diffuser and I may use some negative flash compensation --
particularly for fairly closeup shots. Unfortunately, there's just no
substitute for taking a lot of pictures, keeping notes about what you
did (unless your memory is a lot better than mine), and carefully
evaluating the results.

If you just stick the flash on the camera and start shooting, you will
probably get some good shots and some not-so-good shots -- just like
shooting fully automatic without a flash. On the other hand, if you
invest the time to really learn how to use it, you can develop the
ability to take better shots in situations where natural light is not
enough. It's a fair bit of work (well, taking pictures doesn't feel
much like work), but it's quite rewarding when you realize you are
bending this new piece of equipment to your will.

Leonard

It looks like it was taken with direct sunlight, what makes you think he
used a flash?

Thanks for all the replies guys!

/Kris

I don't think that a flash has been used in this pic.
It just looks like a typical daylight photograph, except that the photog
seems to have crouched down a bit to be able to shoot up into the
child's face.

My suggestion is based on the premise that you have a DSLR or prosumer
digicam that allow the user to use manual settings.
You could, if the subject is silhouetted against a bright sky with the
sun some-where behind him/her/them, then you could use aperture priority
with matrix metering and set the aperture based on the guide number of
the flash.
The camera will then set an appropriate shutter speed, which will expose
for the whole scene and not blow out the sky.
You may need to use a lower ISO speed setting so that the shutter can
flash synch.