Basic flash question

I am just getting into outdoor flash usage and have a question. How or why is a flash able to freeze a moving subject like a flower which is being pushed around by a breeze? Most cameras have a shutter speed of approx 200 with a flash and if the ISO is say 200 or 400 and perhaps an aperture of f11 or f16 I don't understand why it can freeze a subject that has some movement. Thank you.

Tim

The flash freezes the subject because of the time of the flash being much faster than the shutter speed.

The duration of the flash pulse is a tiny fraction of the shutter speed, so the part of your frame that is illuminated by the flash (your flower, for example) is in effect "burned-in" to the sensor at the position in which it was located when the flash fires and illuminates it since the exposure contribution from the ambient light is relatively less. However, when ambient light is sufficiently bright compared to flash output, the movement can also be captured. This results in ghosting, or a blurry, ghostlike image of the ambient-lit, moving flower that appears around the crisp flash-lit flower which is in effect frozen in position.

DarenM wrote in post #14737050
The flash freezes the subject because of the time of the flash being much faster than the shutter speed.

This only happens if the flash is the predominate light source. If ambient is even close to the same brightness this does not apply.