Fireworks! | Purcellville Photographer

What’s a fourth of July celebration without setting up the tripod to capture some of the colorful splendor?  Well… okay… so I realize I might be a tad bit weird compared to most.  But the past two years it’s been fun to experiment with the camera in pursuit of colorful images.  Last year I followed some photo recipes I found on blogs – this year I was a little more free to experiment, using the “Bulb” setting for the first time.  The end results look very much the same but using the bulb setting allowed me a little more control over isolating bursts or including more than one burst in the same image.  Of course with manually pressing and releasing the shutter I did experience some camera shake.  Next year I may have to get a corded release. It was fun to play.  So here are just a few of the images I captured last night.  I’d love to see yours so just link to your blog in the comments below if you have some fireworks images you’d love to share!

I liked the variety in this one with the little “twirly” fireworks in the bottom.

In this one you can see what had quite a bit of breeze last night – which made for some interesting effects as the fireworks dispersed…

I think I photographed almost this identical firework last year!  Still pretty…

Of course, sometimes it’s fun to play a bit – here was one of the ones that had a lot of texture converted to black and white.  I kinda like it!

And here it is in color.

Here is one where I didn’t depressed the shutter until after the burst had started so there’s nothing in the center.  I like the effect here too – different…

In the last 2 we were right underneath these giant bursts – so large that they more than filled the frame.

We had a fantastic holiday weekend celebrating the holiday, playing in the water, even continuing my daughters’ birthday celebration when their grandparents came for a visit.  The first 2 weeks of summer have been so much fun I think I’m not going to know what to do when life gets back to normal!

I LOVE SUMMER!

Hope your weekend was wonderful as well!

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kelly - July 5, 2011 - 5:48 pm

These are awesome Catina! I was too lazy to deal with the camera this year. I’m glad I didn’t, because it was my kiddos’ first time seeing them up close and I was glad I got to experience it with them rather than through a lens. Next year though. Definitely working on my fireworks photos. 🙂

Catina - July 6, 2011 - 12:05 pm

Thanks Kelly! We’ve been lucky with the fourth being on a weekend the past couple years that we usually are able to see more than one fireworks display – which has enabled me to do both. My kids have gotten old enough that when this set of fireworks were happening they wanted to sit with the other kids at the picnic – not mom and dad… lol… though one of the girls did come join me half way through the display.

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