So this is a rant that people who know me will recognize:

Using the flash when taking picture of animals.

Aside from the fact that all on-camera flash photos look generally hideous, this in particular is something that really peeves me. It's generally thoughtless and lazy, and a lot of people don't seem to even realize it's a problem. So here, I'm going to put down the problems of doing this:

1) I already mentioned this, but it's ugly. On-camera flashes produce horribly obvious artificial light. Hard shadows are cast as a sort of outline around subject, and the subjects themselves become bleached by the intense head-on uni-directional light. Combined, the effects become even worse and more noticeable, and you end up with more silhouettes than fleshed out subjects.

But how can we fix this? Step one is obviously to disable the flash, hopefully forever. You could always purchase off-camera flashes, and I won't lie I'd probably have one myself if I had unlimited money, but a better option from my point of view is to just set up shots with adequate lighting. If you don't have enough light, try to make some! I have used lamps, flashlights, candles, laptops, phones, etc. all in the name of adding some light. With animals I know it's not always an option, in which case you may just want to wait until you have an opportunity with enough light. You can always attempt to save the lighting conditions of a photo with editing. You can technically get the picture done with flash, but that doesn't mean you should.

2) Bright lights hurt animals' eyes too. Yea, we're not the only ones who don't like it, and in many cases animal eyes are more sensitive than our own. So as you can imagine, camera flashes in the faces of animals is just as uncomfortable as it is for us, if not worse. So, don't do that.

Honestly, nothing annoys me more than some chump using a camera's flash at close range on their pets. A part of me wants to stick a camera right in their face and set off the flash, and see how they like it. But that's spiteful, and impossible to do over the internet, so I'll just have to settle on trying to begrudgingly educate them with this rant.

3) You better be damn good at getting a shot right the first time. I know that pets tend to react less than wild animals, but when you use the flash of a camera you risk the animal moving away, getting scared, or any number of things that will otherwise ruin the shot you're trying to capture. In this regard, not using the flash allows you to take multiple attempts at a shot. And multiple takes is always a good thing.

So please... stop. Use natural lighting. Invent lighting when necessary. Correct to compensate when needed. STOP.