Fireworks Photo | TrekEarth

Photographer’s Note

Several towns here got together to sponser a fireworks show at the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, CA, on July 4th this year. For those of you unfamiliar, the United States celebrate their independence from Great Britain on July 4th each year. A "critical" part of the festivities include fireworks. Starting around nine pm that night, I could see fireworks going off in at least three locations down along the beach, plus a whole bunch of fireworks in the residential neighbourhoods, not to mention the fireworks occuring at the military base.

This was my first attempt at filming fireworks. I was very glad to have a digital, for out of over a hundred pictures, I was able to get half a dozen nice ones. I found I got the best results from about an eight second exposure (which this one was), but eight seconds is a long time during a fireworks show--often too many fireworks would go off during that time and overexpose the center of the photo. This one came out really well, giving a nice variety of color and spacing.

I moved the actual blossoms to the right of the photo (they had been centered), cropped a bit of night off the top, and resized. Original here.

ISO 50, focal 6mm, exp 0.0

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Critiques | Translate

dennis-flood (144) 2004-07-11 23:31

This photo has a nice mix of colours - I like the fact that a few of the fireworks haven't exploded yet - it leaves you with a sense of anticipation.

Excellent sharpness and contrast. As you've already cropped this from the original, I might suggest another possible crop too, that being to crop it in tighter and make it into a vertical photo. It works the way you've got it, I'm just suggesting an alternative.

cyril (2748) 2004-07-12 4:08

Nice job.
I plan to take some fireworks picture too.
Hope to take such a good one.
Anyway I suggest you crop the left black part to focus on the subject.

wata4no (0) 2004-07-16 1:27

Cool shot. I just went to the Americafest at Rose Bowl this year to see fireworks for 4th of July. I took quite a few shots myself unfortunately I didn't have a digital; just a regular 35mm point and shoot. (took over 3 rolls) I found a few pics I liked...just wish they were a bit bigger like yours.

maphoto (8076) 2004-07-17 9:58

Very nice clean shot of this firework, nice colors on this black background and nicely positioned in your frame. We have 30 minutes firework in Montreal every saturday of june and july and every wednesday of july since 20 years now from many countrys, your photo is very nice, not easy to take, well done and thanks for sharing.

afderrick (330) 2005-06-16 17:18