Day 13 - Flash or No Flash

A bit of a cheat today, since I actually took these two photographs just after 11 p.m. last night. We were walking the dog in the continuing snowstorm and I brought the camera along to practice low-light shots. I took the top picture first, without a flash, holding the camera as steady as possible. I think it's quite pretty. I then took the second shot of the exact same scene, this time with a flash. An amazing difference.

In the first, the whole scene is visible but dimly lit. The street lamp shines through and the entire image has a yellowish tone. In the second, with the flash, the individual snow flakes near the camera are brilliantly lit and stand out, while the background fades into
darkness and the street lamp is a fuzzy ball.

I think they're both interesting pictures but I am most fascinated by the differences between the two. When we looked at them in iPhoto, I kept flipping from one to the other in rapid succession. It made for a really neat effect.