Early Rising Moon

It is two days until the Full Snow Moon, which will be rising a little after 8 in the morning. 
This afternoon the moon was hanging out at a little after 4pm, when it was still full daylight. 
At today’s photography club meeting, one of the members, who is a retired military photographer, taught a class on macro photography. He has an interesting technique. He uses a speed light and shoots in aperture priority mode, ISO at 400, F22 and the speed light set to TTL. Everyone seemed to be able to take wonderful photos at those settings. My attempt is in the extras. For the life of me, I can’t seem to master the speed light. Most of my photos were either too dark, or blown out. I am much more comfortable using manual settings for both the camera and the light.  I think that I need to do some YouTube training for my speed light.