Friday Fotos: Crazy Shots into the Sun

I love these kind of crazy shots. I mean, no sane person points the camera into the morning sun without filters and expects to get a decent shot. The sensor gets flooded with light so these photos tend come come out of the camera very dark, with a bright spot or two – one for the sun and one or two for whatever (camera flare perhaps). Then you have to figure out how to make an image out of it. I start by cranking up the exposure (in Lightroom) and cranking down highlights and see what I've got. The thing is, there's almost no point in trying to get the photo to look like what you saw because 1) you can't remember, and 2) you didn't see it anyhow. That is, you generally don't stare directly into the sun, not for more than a moment or two. So there really is no "natural" look for these images. But you don't want it to look plastic or fake or whatever. Monochrome works: Meanwhile: Is this what I saw: Or was it this: Neither? Just what did I see, anyhow? And what does he see? Is this what the sun sees?