Shooting at Pike Lake State Park

Since winter is here in Wisconsin and the trees have lost all their leaves, I'm mainly concentrating on landscapes with water and cliffs. Today's trip was to Pike Lake State Park. Nestled in the heart of the Kettle Moraine Forest, Pike lake includes a large lake, woods, hills, and many suitable hiking trails. Since the weather has gotten colder than most people prefer, it was relatively deserted today which made it excellent for hiking and shooting photos. The glare from the sun and the bright spots it caused on my lenses however, were problematic. Although some were able to be remedied with Photoshop's stamp clone tool, which lets you color over the area with another part of the picture, it is not always possible to solve the problem this way. Holding your hand at certain angles covering the side of a camera also works but blocks out good light at times. Good a good angle and position to shoot from is key here. I had to take several shots at time to get a good one without the light spots. 

Also got some great "sunset" shots turning up the shutter speed and f-stop and using the FLD filter(pinkish filter). You can shoot a sunset in the late afternoon while its still pretty light outside. I have a feeling many "sunset" shots are actually shot this way since they look very similar to the ones I shot today. Thinking about buying a set of graduated color filters now as well as a few solid color filters(which surpringly were much more expensive that the graduated ones). Looking at Chicago this weekend and then St. Louis for Thanksgiving. Hopefully I can get good shots in these places as well.