Flash photography is hard to predict at first

There is probably no type of photography that is more disappointing to the beginner than flash photography. Unlike natural-light photography, where what you see can often be what you get, it is difficult to visualize what the effects of using flash will be. Flash is shut off until the moment of exposure, and then its illumination is too brief to visually evaluate what it does to your picture.

Many of us just hope for the best, and when our pictures are returned from being processed, we are frequently surprised by the disappointing appearance of those in which we used flash. Shadows can be harsh due to the high contrast from direct flash, and images can look stark; sometimes, facial lighting is flat or subjects have red-eye; foreground objects are often overexposed, looking bleached out, while background objects are darker than we expected - and these are only some of the problems of using flash incorrectly. The sad results are that we become frustrated and tend to not use flash as often as we could, or we just accept the poor results of flash photography as unavoidable.

The other side of the coin is that, properly employed, flash can improve your pictures, provide you with a useful creative tool and allow you to take excellent photographs where there is insufficient ambient light.

After all, flash photography has been in use since the 1860s (when magnesium wire - later magnesium-based powder - was ignited to obtain a sufficiently-bright light), and we have come a long way from those early days in perfecting safer, less-messy and easier-to-deal-with systems of flash photography. When you think of the hardships and technical problems photographers must have dealt with 140 and more years ago in taking flash pictures, it may inspire you. Compared with those early times, it is very easy to learn how to use today's relatively-simple flash systems to make even better pictures.