Tristan Spinski

Florida

Rick Kramer, right, a hunting guide from West Palm Beach, Fla., sinks his knife into the head of an eight-and-a-half-foot alligator several miles south of Clewiston, Fla., on Friday, August 18, 2006. Kramer led a group on the first ever non-motorized-vehicle alligator hunt at a reservior in Hendry County, just south of Lake Okeechobee. Hunters stalked the alligators from the water's edge and in small boats and canoes, using fishing rods and harpoons to snag their prey.
  
  
Senior members of the Immokalee High School Football team take a break from running wind sprints in the afternoon heat during a volunteer workout in Immokalee, Fla., on Tuesday, July 24, 2007.
     
  
   
Swamp Buggy Queen and brushfire, Collier County, Florida
   
     
  
Junior firefighter, Lehigh Acres, Fla.
   
Sunset, Lee County, Fla., 2007
   
Red-shouldered hawk, Lee County, Fla., 2007
     
  
Burnout, Kissimmee, Florida
   
  
"I haven't been on a boat in too damn long," says Elbert Gant, a 79-year-old fisherman who has lived in Bonita Springs, Fla. since he was a toddler. "All the change in Bonita is frightening, and I’m sure nobody who was raised here likes it. But that’s the way it is. Now we know how the Indians feel. Too many pale faces."
     
  
Alligator Alley, en route to Miami, Florida
   
Jack Morgan lights a cigarette as night falls on the “Porch of Knowledge” at the Old Coutry Store on Corkscrew Road in Lee County, Florida - a local hangout and working man’s reservoir of stories, gossip and advice. Morgan is considered the “papa bear” of the porch, claiming the green plastic lawn chair that anyone is welcome to enjoy...in his absence.