4th of July 2014

A few things have struck me about the 4th of July celebrations, a few very important things that are a must have on the 4th, beer (preferably craft beer), food (preferably BBQ) more beer and of course last but not least fireworks. Well this year we managed to have all three in abundance. So we made merry, ate our fill and exploded the driveway...just joking +GIEnterprises Oregon , we didn't actually explode the driveway but we did have a whole lot of fun with the fireworks.

We might as well start this 4th of July post with the food images captured on the day. We had BBQ pork ribs, two racks and they were delicious. And the bonus was that we had plenty of leftovers for the next day.

Unusually we didn't use BBQ sauce this time round but instead marinated the ribs in a mixture of Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar and garlic over night.

I thought they might have lacked moisture with no BBQ sauce but they were fine, they turned out very juicy and didn't appear to dry out at all.

I have to say there is nothing quite like the taste of BBQ pork just off the grill, I'm actually drooling here thinking about it.

We also had salad with the meal though I failed to capture any images of that as I was to busy devouring the ribs.

All good things come to an end they say and this was true of our ribs, after we ate our fill it was time for some real fun. The front yard fireworks display for Talon. He was waiting anxiously at the door with a box of matches in hand...in a safe way I might add and not in a Beavis kind of way.

I love fireworks, when they are relatively low key and not setting off sonic booms to scare the bejusus out of our pets. The legal ones in Oregon though are just fine and still provide a lot of fun and entertainment.

They are mostly just fountains of colour and sparks but they do give a great light show. This is the one night a year that we really do appreciate having very few working street lights on our road.

Above, +Linda Dean  and Talon set up for a light show that very nearly reached the camera, it was very cool.

Not sure if our hops appreciated it, they were probably suffering from shock afterwords.

Being the one behind the camera meant I didn't get to set a whole lot of them off but I eventually got my chance with Talon giving me very detailed directions on how to light them properly and safely.

I hope you all had a great 4th of July and I hope you share your images with the rest of us when you get time, for now though, that is it from me.

 

Images from the 4th of July

I just spent my second 4th of July in the US and this year we had fireworks to celebrate as well as a new camera. This was also my first time shooting fireworks so it was a learning experience all round. Fireworks are a bit more tricky to shoot then I thought they would be.

I'm happy with the few I got, I actually took over three hundred shots but I wasn't happy with a lot of them. It was a positive learning experience though and I really like the way these few turned out.

Talon is extremely photogenic in my opinion and that makes my life a whole lot easier. He seems to get that from his mother +Linda Dean.

Both of them had a great time running around while I had fun snapping them. None of the these shots were posed though, they were all spontaneous which I prefer. Spontaneity is far more natural looking than posed shots.

I loved the way the sparklers lit up his face, it turned out really well and I'm very happy with the shot. Shooting fireworks to me though involves a lot of luck, sometimes it works great and sometimes it turns out rubbish. You just have to have patients with yourself and your camera and it will come together for you in the end.

We set off different types of fireworks but the shots of the sparklers turned out the best as far as I'm concerned and that is why I'm only showing these few for now. We had a lot of fun, we set ours off at around ten and our neighbors across the street started theirs at midnight so we got two shows to have fun with. It was a good test for my new Nikon and I am very happy with it.