So, I finally bought my new camera- a 5D mark ii! (I can’t believe I haven’t made a post dedicated to it entirely yet, but maybe someday soon.) I was stoked to bring it down to my parent’s house in Destin (actually, Santa Rosa Beach) for my week away from school and take lots of photos for fun. Before I even got all the way there I realized it– I had forgotten my battery charger. Ugh! So, it was like playing with a bomb– I only had half of a battery life left and wanted to shoot pictures– but not *too* many, because I didn’t want to run out of juice, especially before my good friend Courtney arrived (as you will notice from the lack of Courtney pictures in the post, it didn’t make it). Anyways, here is what I could capture in the two days or so I was able to shoot with it!
There is a park near the house we went on a walk through.
You’ve gotta be careful though– the alligators could get you. Even the ones on the signs bite. Yep, they are that fierce.
The landscape was unique. It was desolate– sand dunes and trees– but in a way that made it beautiful.
Self-portrait. I am freckly… geez! I never see my face like this!
The park has a natural freshwater lake in it, which is quite unusual, since it is right next to the ocean. Here is a panoramic I shot. If you have Photoshop, panos are a breeze! You take several shots (making sure to overlap the shots about 1/3 of the way, so the computer has some material to work with when it stitches it together). Then, you open the files in PS and go to File>Automate>Photomerge and let the magic happen!
If you click on it, you can see it bigger.. in all its glory 
I sent Mom and Dad a special Easter present. What could it be?
Ooooh… its a Lagomarcino’s dark chocolate Easter egg! Filled with 20 assorted chocolates!
Dear old Dad. He’s happy about the chocolate.
Speaking of Easter– Mom decided that we should take a photo in our “Easter clothes” after church. Here we are!
But, I’ll have you know, the above shot didn’t just happen. I had to get my gear set up and ready to go… so while I was getting everything ready and testing the lighting, my parents were “modeling” (sometimes knowingly and sometimes not so knowingly.) These pictures were too hilarious not to post!! (I can do this. They are my parents
These next few pictures are just to show you a fun little trick that my friend Amy Turner taught me. The room below was completely dark. The photo was taken at ISO 400, f10 at 24mm with a 30 second exposure. I then walked around in the room, flash in hand, and hit the “test” button (making the flash fire) at different places in the room. Amazing, huh?
This next one is kinda awesome. Look at the shadows on the walls– its me! I was walking around the room firing the flash, just like in the last picture. You can’t see me since the exposure is so long, but the flash firing in a smaller space made a shadow on the wall that showed up!
Since I switched to a full-frame camera, my lenses capture scenes 1.6 times wider– so I love seeing how much of a scene I can now capture at 24mm! It feels soooo much wider! Here is Dad in his study. This was on a tripod with a 1.3 second exposure, which is why Dad is blurred.
This post doesn’t look very “Destin-ish,” does it? I promise we went to the beach, ate lots of seafood, fished, rode jet skis and the boat, hung out with the dolphins etc! Maybe I’ll put up some pics from my point and shoot once I get them uploaded.
