When you go to a wedding and see the photographer taking portraits of the bride and groom, you will see them using a flash bracket. They are not trying to look fancy. The bracket allows them to take better photographs.
Function
A flash bracket is a device that allows an external flash unit to be lifted away from the camera, eliminating "red-eye" and grotesque shadows.
Benefits
Built-in camera flashes and external flashes mounted on the camera's hot shoe are notorious for producing "red-eye" because the flash is so close to the camera lens. Because a flash bracket moves the flash away from the lens, the light hits the eye at a different angle and "red-eye" is not produced.
Considerations
Shooting vertical pictures with a hot-shoe mounted external flash, will produce noticeable shadows because the flash's position to the side of the lens instead of above the lens. That shadow can be distracting when it shows on the wall behind the subject, or worse yet for people photography, under the eyes of the subject.
Types
Some flash brackets, called flip brackets, have a rotating arm that allows the flash to be positioned over the camera whether you are shooting horizontally or vertically. There are also brackets that allow the photographer to rotate the camera.
Misconceptions:
Wedding photographers are not the only photographers to use flash brackets. Nature photographers use them to avoid the animal version of "red-eye" and in macro, or close-up, photography.
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