Back when we lived in the loft, we had great natural lighting, and I could
easily take pictures like this:

But in the new house, there simply isn’t a lot of natural light coming in,
and I take pictures like this:

So, I’m idly looking for inexpensive photography lighting options. I’ve
seen some 100 watts/second monolight kits from B&H Photo Video online for
around $150. Of course, one can quickly drift up into the thousands of
dollars to burn like the sun.

Do any photography buffs out there know how much oomf one needs in strobe
flashes to be able to take nicely lit hobby “portrait” shots?