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For shots like the last picture, it's best to get those during dusk, and have the river run sideways across the frame. Being that it's dusk will allow you to use longer shutter speeds without overexposing everything, and allow for that misty/flowing effect. It's too hard in the daytime because the slowest you can drop your shutter speed down to is perhaps 1/30s with aperture stopped all the way down to f/8 on a prosumer camera (which also means quality loss).
During dusk you can get shutter speeds of a few seconds, and that really helps in creating the effect.
For that shot my tripod was in the water, the shutter was operated via remote, and it was DAMN COLD.
As for hiking alone, yeah, it really gets crazy sometimes at night with all the sounds in the distance. One night I was asleep in my tent, which was fastpacked (just the rainfly as the roof, no side walls), and I heard a sniffing sound right up against my ear from within my dream. I sprang up and something immediately skurried out of my tent.
I always hike with a knife and mace, and MAY consider bringing a gun. A lot of hikers don't like the fact that people will bring guns, but come on, I'm solo, I'm not big, and my stamina is not exactly marathon material. Mace isn't always going to work, and a little pocketknife ain't gonna do anything for most encounters.
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