Its funny, really. I've been visiting this creek since I was a small, small child. And since then, I've always thought it was Reedy Creek. It was only while naming this photo that I realized that Reedy Creek, or what I thought was Reedy, is actually Sycamore Creek. That... Explains a lot, actually. Like why there's no reeds. This was taken near the old mill ruins, but around the bend from the bridge. It was taken handheld with an infrared Canon 20D and a stock 18-55mm lens at 28mm. I find that 28mm lets me focus properly without getting all the weird problems that IR can get shooting through a normal lens.
The running joke between Josh and the rest of us is that the North Carolina zoo needs to fund an expedition to locate their animals. Indeed, many were missing or sleeping somewhere hidden throughout the day. This ostrich, however, was more than happy to pose right up against the barrier for us, looking for all the world like she was smiling. Yeah, I know, her beak can't change shape, but it looked like it. I captured this with my 75-300 lens and a relatively high ISO of 1600. I'm glad the noise on this shot stayed down, as it is a quick way to ruin detail shots.
I captured this from the highway on the way to a Memorial Day weekend hot air balloon festival. I had my friend go to my trunk and get the rented 5D Mark II and Sigma 50-500mm lens for me. We were in completely stopped traffic for most of an hour, and I was able to capture several shots from my car. The festival was an organizational disaster once we got there. There were no balloons set up. Then, we found out there were no provisions to get balloons back from their earlier flights, so they were stuck on the road. Nobody was able to tell us when the evening glow was. Eventually, several pilots told us there wasn't one, so we packed up to leave. On the way out, they announced that they WERE doing one, but by then, it was too late as I was outside the area already. On top of that, only 4-5 balloons had even made it back to the field. Next year, I will probably either not go, or go earlier under the assumption that they hopefully have it together this time.
