Monday, July 4, 2011

The Rocket's Red Glare

The best part of the Fourth of July is the fireworks. Anyone who tells you differently is a communist. :) Honestly, though... you can't celebrate the birth of a nation as great as ours without filling the valleys with the bursting of bombs and the sweet smell of sulfur. And while all of this is happening, I like to try to capture it on film. Digital film. Only communists use the traditional stuff anymore.

On Saturday night, I went down to watch the Stadium of Fire with some friends who live only a few blocks outside Lavell Edwards Stadium.


Our vantage point was such that I could get a pretty good shot of the fireworks. I set my camera to a 10 second shutter speed, an aperture of somewhere between f8 and f11, and let the magic happen.


While I love the way these turned out, I wish I had paid more attention to the white balance. I think I had it on auto, so sometimes colors would be pushed to white by the camera.


Love the blues in this one.


My personal favorite.

On Sunday night, we had a great dinner with the family and played games out on the deck in the late evening. It was heavenly. At dusk, though, the sky around us erupted into a cacophony of fiery popping and sizzling and I had to get up on the roof to record some of the action.


Using a long shutter speed again, I was able to illuminate the mountains behind the fireworks with the city lights.


The bursts of color were much smaller than with the stadium of fire, but so fun to see above the treeline of the city.


I went for more of a panoramic effect here. It was HARD to capture these, as I never knew where the next mini-show would pop up. Regardless, I had a ton of fun. :)

-Barry