Night Time/Daybreak at the Lakefront

Went down to the local lakefront at 5AM this morning!!! Way to early but as soon as I got there I saw this..

It was amazing! The moon was still out and the sun was rising in about 30 minutes. I walked around using my Canon 60d just taking this shot at different angles to try and get the perfect shot. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to sell any of these but hey they are great shots anyway.

At sunrise it was a harsh orange and I saw a guy fishing in the water so I broke out my 70-300mm lens to try and get him but instead he was gone and I got this...

 It's simply amazing, the colors that are so strong during a sunrise or sunset.

As I was walking down the "boardwalk" I saw these little binocular things and wondered what the heck are people using this for? On the other side of the lake are houses haha but I got low.

And finally, last night I was watching a B & H video on youtube (you should check their seminars out, and a guy took a picture of a tree and I thought it was pretty cool so here's my attempt.

So as I was walking back to my car to round out the day I had my 8mm fisheye lens on my camera and decided to shoot the best model I know!!!!!

The lakefront is a beautiful place but the sun rises in the wrong spot and it's not completely finished unfortunately. Hopefully my trip to downtown Tampa in a couple of weeks will bring out some awesome shots.

Hiking in the woods

So My first landscape trip in years was out in the middle of nowhere in St. Cloud. It was a walking trail in the 3 lakes management area. I went out there for the first time with nothing but a camera. The 2nd time I went with at least a bag, knife, and a monopod. I still forgot my water though. Never go hiking without the bare essentials. I have my hiking pack ready now for whenever I need it. It includes;

Canon 60D
Canon Backpack
18-55mm Canon Lens
50mm 1.8 Canon Lens
70-300mm Canon Lens
Large Knife
Swiss Army Knife
Minimum, 1 bottle of water
Flashlight
Compass
Cell Phone
First Aid Kit (including snake bite kit)

So I saw this row of tress as soon as I walked into the woods. I though it looked pretty cool but when I got home I was astonished!

 This picture came out so great!!

I also saw this row with this single tree in the middle so I figured I would set it to my "Lonely..." series of pictures, this one I call obviously "The Lonely Tree"

 The interesting thing is that these woods were just burned so it almost seems to give a "fall" look to the picture. This is what I love about photography.

This was simply a picnic table on the trail so I turned it black and white.

Here's me with some of my equipment walking the trail. The only problem is DON'T  GET OFF THE TRAIL!!!!

If you decide to get off the trail you might run upon some amazing and scary pictures or animals!!!

Ya, I walked off the trail and BOOM!!! here's an 11 foot alligator about 30 feet away from me. I didn't even see it until I was so close. It gave me a cool shot but man, my heart was pumping!!!!!!