kylewith

Sep 05 2011

Chasing the Perfect Sunset

I’ll tell you right off the bat I did not actually find the perfect sunset. Recently Fort St. John has had the pleasure of seeing some wonderful, beautiful red sunsets. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case yesterday evening. I saw the sun setting and thought maybe it would be spectacular, but then my dilemma was where do I go?

Having remembered seeing a good spot north of Fort St. John I took off towards Cecil Lake. Now this is a 26km drive through some Coolies, which take you into a large valley where you can’t see the sun. Looking back I actually went the wrong way, I was supposed to go towards Rose Prairie. I ended up going a ways down a farm road until I found this empty fields where I could see the sun slightly.

I’m not proud of these images, I wanted to do so much better. While some would say that these photos are actually pretty neat, which I think they are, but they’re not the level that I wanted them. As I don’t consider myself an actual photographer, I wanted to share them anyways and tell the story about them as it is the journey that I am on to learn how to be a better photographer.

So the tip I learned yesterday evening was to scout out your position first. Find the best spot for different types of photographs before wanted to take them. In my case during the day sometime I’m going to scout out the proper place to view a sunset, and also a place where it would make for an interesting photo. I assume that many outdoor portrait photographers are always looking for new places to shoot. Now that I’ve learned my lesson, I’m always going to be on the lookout for that special spot.

Sep 04 2011

An easy way to make Pulled Pork

Well I thought it time we break out the old slow cooker… for the first time. Yes I bought the bad boy over 2 months ago and just took it out of the box Thursday evening. My plan: to make pulled pork. I had looked at a couple of recipes online and my mom even emailed me some recipes out of her slow cooker book (I love my mom, she inspires me too cook). As much as I want to go all out with this dish I did just want to try something simple and go from there. Therefore I choose the easiest looking recipe to try.

What you need:

2-3lbs Pork Roast, cubed
1-2 White Onions, chopped
12oz of BBQ Sauce
1/4Cup Honey

Yes, slow cookers are really easy to use and very hard to screw up, but it can be done. No, I am not speaking from experience. When you get up in the morning or 8 hours before you want to eat this slop, put in the cubed pork and chopped onions into the slow cooker. On top of that pour in the BBQ sauce and honey. Cover and turn onto Low.

It will take 8 hours, but I did come home at lunch to check on it as I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out. The recipe I’m basing my dish off of says to pull the pork apart at the very end, but now that I have made it, I will most likely pulled it apart halfway through the cooking process.

I have to give a should out to Devon at Patch Java, as he supplied me with the Homemade BBQ Sauce. Ironically his BBQ sauce is made from the juices of his pulled pork.

The conclusion of this meal was semi-successful. After 8 hours in the pot I felt it was too watery and I wasn’t completely sure how to combat this for next time. To help thicken up this pot I added some flour, most likely too much.Eating it was still enjoyable, especially on a kaiser bun.

Sep 03 2011

Holding print photos in your hand

I had a little nostalgic moment earlier today. I wanted to fill up some of the picture frames I had been gathering during my Garage Saling adventures so I got some prints done up. I had done it once before at Walmart, but I wanted to try the semi-local alternative Unforgettable Memories Foto Source. So 35 minutes after ordering 3 5×7 and 2 4×6 prints online they were ready for pickup in-store. Just like that I had them in my hands.

As cheesy as it sounds it was a real awe inspiring moment. I was actually holding something that I had created. It is funny to think that nowadays we often never print some of our photos. I can only image what it was like before the age of digital.

Sep 02 2011

Pink Mountain Mist Moment

Couple months ago we went up to the top of Pink Mountain, which is almost halfway between Fort St. John and Fort Nelson. While on the top we watched a storm system come in.

The wide angle lens, which is the Tokina 11-16mm, really made this shot seems all that much more powerful. I’m still trying to master the tonemapping techquie or HDR. Currently I’m struggling with making the images come out with detialed enough to look clear. Granted for this image, I know the f/stop would have had to have been around f/16.

ISO200, 11mm, f/3, 1/2500 sec

Sep 01 2011

I’m Still Young, I’m Still Hip

This gentleman was walking past the pizza joint I was at in Jasper and I grabbed this photo of him. I like to imagine what kind of people are in my photos. Each person is different and is captured a different way.

This gentleman, I feel is young at heart. He had a grin on his face that made me think he was going “yeah man, I got this, I’m cool.” Then the ball cap and shades top it off. He was confident as he walked down the main drag of Jasper.

ISO400, 115mm, f/5.6, 1/320 sec