Some modest success
The neighborhood went fireworks crazy this year but they were kind of all around us with some of the best early ones behind some trees across the street. I read a few good tutorials on getting shots of fireworks from several photography sites (this one is the best of them) and I had everything on my camera ready to go. But it turns out that the hardest part of photographing fireworks is the whole physics issue of speed of light vs. sound. I guess if you parked yourself in front of some official fireworks display, it’d be a lot easier to anticipate the explosions. But I was on my porch and trying to guess which direction the next one would come from, and then trying to anticipate the actual explosion. Not easy.
A little later, a neighbor just up the street started shooting a few off and since I could actually watch him light the fuse, I could finally get a better idea of when and where to shoot. Those were better. As always, click the image to go to Flickr for more shots.
By the way…fireworks like these are supposed to be illegal in NC. But since our Matthews Police neighbor was out watching with the rest of us, I guess it really didn’t matter.
Maybe next year, I’ll make a plan to go to an actual public display and try some more. All in all, I’m not disappointed with how they came out but I would’ve liked to have had more time to practice. Especially since it only happens once a year. One other thing…it’s a bit geeky, I know, but read the Wikipedia entry on fireworks. Did you know that several of the most common fireworks use salt compounds for the colors? I didn’t. For example, to get the color green, the fireworks contain barium chloride.
