First shoot! (part 1)

Yes! I had my first chance to do a "real" shoot yesterday, and even though the results were less than spectacular, at least I learned a few things.

First, some background: I'm a hobbyist, and I recently bought my first (d)SLR, a Canon T1i, along with an 18-200 zoom and a 430 EX II flash. I've been taking pictures for quite some time, but flash photography always scared me a bit (besides, this is my first hot-shoe equipped camera, so my only experience with flash had been with the pop-up variety... yuck!). Anyway, on to the shoot...