I took the plunge. Purchased a flash. GAH! A flash! After hearing/seeing Jess’s attempts to mimic natural light with her flash, I decided what the hell. I’ve seen some amazing photographs that I’d never have guessed were taken with flash (because they look so natural and… non-flashy looking… and had CATCHLIGHTS!!) and I hope that someday I’ll be able to create photographs like that.
For now, I’d just like to be able to bounce the flash off the windows/ceiling when there is no sunlight. I want less snap-shotty looking snapshots. I won’t be using this flash for sessions anytime soon as I have a feeling there is going to be a steep learning curve. Its so funny… I think I’m feeling right now how many people feel when they email me and say "Nicole! I just bought a DSLR…what do I do next?!?" That’s how I’m feeling. I literally put the flash on my camera, turned it on and took some shots today. I have no clue what all the buttons on it are for. I have no clue how it works together with my Manual settings on my camera. I’ll have to really get into reading about this to make my pictures look decent.
Anyhow, today I just dinked around with bouncing it off the ceiling and off the windows (my favorite!). For some reason if I went above f/2.2 or so the pics were a little underexposed, but I have no idea how or what my flash was interpreting the settings from my camera. So, I have a lot of learning to do.
Here are a few of the first images I took. Literally "plug and play" LOL!
These were both taken this morning, when the sun was still barely up. While the last one doesn’t look very "natural" it at least lacks the nasty flash shadows.
nicolebarczak.com 
How are you liking your flash? I have been thinking about getting one, but don’t really know anything about them.