night lights

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day. 

~ Vincent Van Gogh

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend!

Last year we watched the July 4th fireworks show in close proximity to the fireworks themselves. It was very crowded and very difficult to photograph.

This year I had a plan to photograph from a bridge that was a modest distance away from the show. 

Close enough to see the display with ease, but distant enough to be away from the crowds and to have    bridges in the foreground and city lights as complementary elements to the main show.

This image stood out because the display on the far left was clear and not overexposed, and I also caught another explosion near the towers (middle) and a flash from the show a state away (Vancouver, WA; right). 

A triumvirate of displays!!

For this shot, I manually focused on the bridge in the foreground, I used a low ISO (200), medium aperture (f/8.0), and used the bulb setting

to manually initiate and terminate the exposure time. I aimed to commence the exposure after the initial explosion and end it before the disappearance of the display 

and before the beginning of the next explosion. In this case, 3 seconds. 

Exposing is empirical.

The most important part of the whole thing -

have fun!!

For more technical information on shooting fireworks, check out this site.

Fuji XT1 ISO 200 f/8.0 3 seconds 18-135mm (EFL 52mm)