The disadvantage of flash

I was part of the Liberal Democrats North West Conference yesterday and here is one of the photos. I did take more but I will only show you them if I get permission but I already have that persmission from the Minister from the Department for Communities and Local Government. I was thinking of putting it on my politics blog and writing about the ease in which anyone can talk to a Liberal Democrat Minister or how I am able to take a photo like this when I am barred from doing so in many public areas for no obvious reason, but I am placing this on my photography blog so I will stick with the photographic aspects.

If you don't use flash then you do get ambient light. The atmosphere of the room is reflected in the photo whereas flash produces an artificial scene. It makes a bright foreground and a harsh shadow in the background. In fact if you are not close to the subject then the flash is almost useless. The trick if you are using flash is to get close to the subject. The drawback to turning off the flash is that if there is any movement then you get blur but most of my photos were fine yesterday. However the big advantage to turning off the flash is that most people won't know the camera is working.

Happy snapping