Towards the end I happened to spot a little alcove with a bench seat and white walls all around, and I thought, a-ha! some bounced flash fun here for sure! And indeed, with a little help from others holding flash and (for my self-portrait) camera, I did manage to make a few lovely portraits.
I've learnt that in these situations I need to increase the exposure quite a bit. My camera (a Nikon D70s) tends to under-expose flash photos—well, actually, it tends to expose so that the highlights are dead on 50%. This looks fine in many situations, but for nice portraits it's way too dark. But I really like the instant feedback of digital photography: I just set it on manual, chose a flash power a bit below maximum (I think these were at about 1/4), and adjusted the aperture until it looked right.
This work by Ian Bailey-Mortimer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available by request.
