fun with wide-angle lenses!

today i decided to go play with my wide-angle lens. until now, i had just been using the macro, but thought a change was in order. i wanted a picture of a tall building, but being here in the bustling metropolis of gainesville, that's not possible. the best i could do was ben hill griffin stadium, otherwise known as the swamp. and being a hardcore gator, it seemed the perfect choice! :)

here we go:
here is the outside from gale lemerand drive (formerly known as north-south drive, must be nice to have enough money to have a street, among other things, named after you). i was standing directly across the street:

shots inside the stadium, first is the scoreboard in the north end zone:

the view of the home side of the field, skyboxes and all...

while trying to go as high up as i could, i started to realize i'm a little ascared of heights! what a time to figure that out...grrr...but here is the view from (almost) the top of the north end zone:

now we're moving outside the stadium, toward the gator walk (the brick road that the team walks up every home game, the bricks are engraved with fans' names, i will have a brick on the gator walk one day...but first, here is the gator outside the stadium (i think this was my class' senior class gift but i'm not positive, it was a statue somewhere, i know that much lol)
the first shot is focused on the mouth--CHOMP CHOMP!

the second is focused on his eyes:

now moving down the walk...you get one of these in your brick if you pay a LOT of money:

and this is in recognition of our back-to-back basketball/football championships:

and the end of the gator walk (or the beginning, depending on your perspective). it took forever to get a shot because as i was walking to the end, there wasn't a soul around, but after i got there, 40,000 people magically appeared with cameras trying to take pictures. WTF? then two douchebags stood around in front of me like forever (and they did turn around and saw me sitting there patiently with my camera in hand) talking about how cool they will be after they graduate in 5 years (hahaha) standing outside that stadium blah blah blah. my thought was how cool it would be if they get the hell out of my way so i could get a picture. anyways, here it is:

and for my last shot, i took a walk across the street to the alumni hall to get a pic of the albert & alberta statue. i really wish this had been there when i graduated (i took less than 5 years, by the way lol). maybe i'll borrow a cap and gown and go take a pic one day...

until next time folks...

thoughts on a road trip...

first, i had plenty of tunes to listen to, thanks to reloading the mp3 player in my phone (ipod what?), about 200 songs, more than enough to get me from point a to point b. plus, i had 60+ miles of this to look at:


miles and miles of woods. no phone signal so no one to talk to. so my mind wanders.
a sampling of the thoughts i thought about:

1. prince is a badass no matter what...he can make singing about purple bananas cool!

2. why is it so hard to get a good self-portrait in the car?


(this was the best out of 15 tries, no joke)

3. what is the point of getting in the middle lane of the interstate and going 60 mph? isn't that what the right lane is for?

4. the gap band's "you dropped a bomb on me" is one of the best car-dancing songs EVER. i dare you to disagree.

5. why the hell don't stores sell nehi peach soda anymore? the last time i found it was in south carolina a few months ago. i should have cleaned out the whole stock. alas...this is what i had to settle for (but at least I paid $1.59 for gas!)


6. why am i even TAKING pictures in the car?


7. should i stop for gas...or keep going for a cheaper station?

(look...the gas light was on and everything. i made it to the above-mentioned holy grail $1.59 gas. go me!)

8. it is impossible to be in a bad mood when you've got such beautiful warm weather to drive in.

9. so what, i'm still a rockstar!

and last but not least,

10. guns'n'roses peaked at the opening riff to sweet child o'mine.

yes, i said it. sorry if the truth hurts. ;)

(the playlist was removed...i tried to re-do it so it wouldn't start automatically but I kept getting an error message. if i get it fixed i'll repost it...)