Quote Originally Posted by kiley9806 View Post
does anyone know what i had going wrong?
Absolutely nothing; one of the skills that you will gain as you become more experienced is the ability to actually see these sorts of highlights and shadows on the subject while you're composing the image. Now, what you have done about it? Well, really a few of things: (1) Move the subject, (2) Wait for the sun to move, or (3) use a diffuser behind her to reduce the brightness.

There's very little that the camera can about things like shadow and highlights. Some of the higher-end DSLRs and P&Ss have software which will compensate to some degree, but even that isn't much good. It's one of those things that must be 'got right in the camera'.