I have seen the light!

So after taking portraits for my cousins a few weeks back, I was disappointed with my ability to do inside, low light portraits. Usually I'm taking pics of mountains in day light, or crazy band members on a dark, dingy stage. I'm well aware of the abilities/limitations of my camera and know how to handle those situations quite well. However, I've never really done classy, sit down portraits.

I decided that I needed some new equipment. My father got me a badass 7 lb tripod for christmas, which is 10x better than the older one I had. I also invested in a wired-remote trigger for my camera, allowing me to trigger the shutter without actually touching the camera. Kiss those vibrations goodbye. The icing on the cake, though, is my new studio light. That's right, I own some studio lighting now. It's intense, 500W intense, to be exact. It's bright.