Places to practice/play around?

[digitalbanzai]

I am looking for good places around town to practice and play around taking shots. I'm still pretty new to photography and am really just looking to expand past taking mundane shots around the house and neighborhood. I was thinking of just sitting through some high school football games and little league ball games to mess around with shooting sports (hopefully not looking like that crazy solitary guy with a camera, mind you). Any good places for this? I live pretty close to the big sports complex (Harold Patterson) in Arlington, so I thought just squatting down there one Saturday might work.

I'd especially like to find a place with some nice landscape to play around with taking some landscape photography. A place with a nice, clear sunset would be a major plus, since most of the places and parks around south Arlington have an obstructed view of the horizon (trees, buildings, and such).

Also, some places that might be a nice backdrop to practice portrait shots would be spectacular (namely daylight portraits, since I'm not quite to being able to handle low-light situations).

Not looking to pick up a chisel and become a master sculptor. Simply somewhere to whittle away.

P.S. - Any good classes in the DFW (especially Arlington) area worth taking as a novice? I have a pretty good hold of the basics (I understand aperture, shutter speed, exposure, and such pretty well), but my pictures seem to be lacking good focus and composition.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Easy composition trick- get a empty slide film holder- the little white or grey plastic piece that holds slide film pieces-attach a lanyard to it- hang around neck. When you come to a scene hold the tool up about a foot from your face and use it to compose a shot in it. (closer if you have a wide angle lens and farther for a higher mm lens)

Was taught this trick by a pro almost 20 years ago. He gave everybody one at a workshop no matter what their skill level was and it will help you frame up a shot pretty quickly and once you get the distance thing down on how it relates to lens size it will also help you choose what lens to use for a shot either say a 28mm or a 50 or an 85 or a 100 or higher or lower. We were doing a lot of landscapes in New Mexico/Arizona/Utah with the workshop.