I started to mess with images that has flash photography! Man, this is confusing for sure, so many
settings and modes just for the flash! I learned about some technique called "dragging the shutter",
but still don't know how to apply it correctly. grrrr.
My main goal is for an image to look like as if I didn't use any hard flash at all!
I'm so confused right now... grrr for now you'll see lots of plain ordinary images as I struggle to
tweak with the flash settings.
Here's my first experiment...

add on...
someone was kind enough to message me what the term means...

'Dragging the shutter', a term from film cameras where the camera was set at a slow shutter speed
(~ 1/15 sec is common) is probably called 'slow sync' or similar on your camera. It is an auto
setting. The trouble with the auto is that you don't know how long the shutter will be open. You
may be able to set this, or simply do the whole thing manually. You can get some really great
shots with this technique. I use it a lot at dances. Use a slow ISO, 100-200 or as fast as 400,
depending on the ambient light. I almost always use this indoors.

What you are doing is capturing the ambient scene lighting, often bringing out the background,
which flash photos often leave black, and/or bringing the quality of the ambient light. The two
principle effects you get are 1) Implying action, sometimes to the point of creating an abstract,
or 2)bringing up the background into view with the slow shutter speed, while correctly exposing
the subject (usually in the foreground), with the flash. In this case you may want to be using a
tripod. All of my shots have been hand-held to date.