I’ve only found a few chances to play with my new camera flash (or “Speed Light,” in Nikon parlance) prior to the wedding this weekend, so I’m still getting the hang of it. I briefly scoped out the venue for last night’s dinner and it looked fine — low ceilings, which is really all I was looking for. I forgot to ask Igor to bring me my diffuser, which it turns out was a critical error. You see, to get good, soft light and avoid red eye, you want to bounce the flash off the ceiling. Which works well if the ceiling is low. The problem comes when your ceiling is chock full of chandelier crystal, and every time you flash it causes a thousand little light reflections on everything, like a disco ball. But if you do a non-bounce flash, the light is harsh and overpowering, and of course there is the red eye problem. And did I mention that all the walls were covered in big mirrors?

Bad venue for the inexperienced photographer! Having the diffuser, which softens and spreads the light, would probably have helped a lot. Today is outdoors, though, so perhaps I’ll do better. And of course there is the “official” wedding photog, so its not like I have to worry too much about missing the important moments.

I took 103 images last night. I’m happy with about a dozen of them. One of which is pictured here.