Learning myself the art of photography - Day 1 - Old scrap buried on the surface

So, today was the day my camera finally arrived!

Unfortunately, the weather today has been kinda shit as everything was covered in 4-6inches of snow yesterday, and all of it rained away during the night.

So for my first "photosession" ever, I had rain combined with snow aswell as the sky was covered with clouds. This made my blitz go off anywhere I tried taking a picture, no matter what setting I put it on. Kinda pissed me off cause every single picture was automatically overexposed(I believe that's what it's called). And ofc, with the shitty weather I had no idea what to go for in the settings because every single setting made it look stupid because of the flash, so I used the antiflash option on all pictures.

Anyway I went on my way to find one of the places I used to play with my friends when I was a kid, I knew there would be some stuff to photograph there. There used to be a lot more stuff here before, but I guess they have cleaned up some of it.

PLEASE CRITIQUE MY "WORK" AS I'M IN IT TO LEARN!

I've been trying to find out what this thing was, only thing I know it's that is has something to do with a sawmill. It might be some sort of a planer.

I don't know the name for this thing in English, but I'm pretty sure that this is were the planks were taken to be shaped into the right size. Accompanied by two older Massey Ferguson Combine Harvesters in the back, the one on the left was last in use about 15 - 20 years ago. I know this because we accidentally started one when playing with them as kids:p

Taking this picture, I actually fell through the floor with one foot, so I decided to get out of there before the whole thing collapsed:p

Maybe an old T-ford? What do you think?

Some parts of the sawmill found 50 meters away from the actual sawmill:p

I know what this is too, but I have no idea what they're called. If you know, let me know:)

My own critique:

I feel the pictures are too bright, I would like to darken them a little. Aswell as getting to capture more of the colors around, the pictures are a bit pale.
I was using the AF the whole time, maybe could have been better done by using the MF setting and dealing with the focus manually. I basically used AF because of the snow, it covered my camera within seconds so I had to be quick about it:p Mad I didn't check out the manual functions of the camera before, been playing around with it now at home, and I think I know a bit more in order to achieve some better photography:)

Hoping for a better day tomorrow in terms of light, so I can test out more of the different settings!
And if you have any tricks up your sleeve I would love to learn about them:)