I wanted to go check out taking pictures of Clearwater at night time. I've always loved how they light up buildings and bridges to make them stand out in the night. So I grabbed my gear (my Canon XSi, my tripod and my Canon Remote Switch RS60 E3) and went on a little excursion.

I was very interested in taking pictures of the bridge that connects us to Clearwater Beach. So I went to both sides and took some shots. I ran into an issue while taking these pictures. I had the UV filter on my lens and that was making some reflections of the lights on the lens, looked like some lights were ghosted. So I took the filter off and the pictures looked great. The remote switch makes it very easy to use the Bulb mode on the camera and allows me to play with the length I leave the shutter open.

Another thing that I've always loved to photograph is fountains in the night time. My favorite is the Trevi Fountain in Rome, I didn't have a DSLR but it was worth carrying a tripod with me because I was able to take very night shots of Rome. Back to fountains; I love how white and flowey the water looks when you take your photographs with a slow shutter speed (I was doing about 1 second for the fountain shots) and makes it look very professional.

Hope you enjoy the pictures, I enjoyed composing these and tell me which one you like the best.

Full Album can be found here: Clearwater at Night

Wednesday Feb the 10th my awesome DK Helio BMX was stolen. You'll be missed my friend.
I had come in early to work since we had a Release at the Office and I left late because I was going to update our servers with their MS Updates. I came out at 7:45pm and I saw something strange; my bike was not in the bike rack. I thought, "Oh, I must've come in the car today" but unfortunately I remembered the ride that morning I was freezing my hands because it was so cold. Then it hit me, the bike has been stolen. I had it locked up with my combination lock (not the best I know but better than nothing) to the bicycle rack. I was lucky to find a Policeman near the office and reported it stolen knowing that I would never see it again.

Here was the dilemma, I could just forget about buying a bike and just start walking, how boring is that? So I decided to get something a bit more useful this time. Don't get me wrong, I love my BMX but if I was to ride it for more than 30 minutes to actually go somewhere it was a pain since the seat is so low and I couldn't pedal and sit at the same time.

Enter the fixed gear bicycles. I knew of fixed gear bicycles for a while and what I liked about them is their simplicity. Just like a BMX they only have one gear so there's no derailleur so there's less parts to break which sounds good to me. So I looked around and searched the Internet and found a couple places where I too could get one of these bikes. I had many choices and I finally came up with the Torker U-District. I like that it's simple and that it has a Flip-Flop hub which means I can go Fixed or Freewheel (don't have to pedal all the time) by simply flipping the back tire. I decided to buy at my local bike shop since I thought I give them the business and I can always go to someone for help if some happens to the bike.

So far it's been a blast to relearn who to ride the bike. It's been, literally, a pain in the ass since I wasn't used to sitting down and pedaling but I'm really loving it. One of the reasons I got a fixed gear it's because it's fun, I can certainly use it as a mode of transportation but why not travel and have fun at the same time, right?

I'll keep posting stuff on anything I do to my new bike and what I what I plan to do.