I have nothing against photo-journalism and depending on the circumstances, I'll use a flash in a heartbeat. But when it comes to beauty pageants I avoid flash like the plague. Now of course if I was shooting in a studio, that would be different. But at the county fair, with poor lighting, I'd rather take 250 shots and wind up with 2 or 3 than use a flash and wind up with 250 uninspired images. Here's one of three. All the contestants were lovely and the shots that made it are just the product of fate.