The Power of a Flash

I have never actually been a fan of using flash in photography because of bad experiences with the built in flash on the camera that shoots forward and blinds the person and also makes his face too bright~~ so been always finding ways to counter it by learning about a large aperture, high ISO, just finding ways to counter using a flash, thought of doing some D.I.Y. methods to bounce the build in flash, but was kinda lazy... I guess in the end I was quite the Anti-Flash fella...

But everything changed when I got the set of pictures of Graduation Salute 2008 from Jon Koo~
He uses a Konica Minolta, the last remaining model of it's kind... he got this set for Rm1300... 0.0

But the thing that changed my view about flash is... well flash is actually rather cool~ if you have an external flash that can turn around, so you can make the flash bounce off walls and ceilings... it does improve light, here's the difference from his pictures and mine~~
This was the picture taken with my 300D not using a flash
And here's the difference with a flash... the picture isn't only brighter, it doesn't look TOO bright, and the original colors remain~
Without Flash
With Flash, big differences in image brightness~ which is far better compared to mine =)
Even this, taken from the end of the hall, makes everything else clear, without a flash, it'll just look dark at the back and bright in the front~~ and best, I look good XD

So... yeah, a flash IS awesome, and I am greatly humbled by his pictures, guess I've got something new to learn now, about flash... should get a big flash someday when I save up~ till then... always wanted to try the 2nd Curtain flash function on my 50D, shall try it soon and show you all the results~~
But... yeah I haven't actually blogged about the Graduation Salute before though friends are asking me to blog about it... hmmm... should I??? Though it's an old topic cause it's last year's thingy~ what do you think?? =)