Fireworks Part 4 - Getting Creative with Fire.

What to do when the only fireworks you can see are from your back yard?

Visual obstructions cause me to rethink my goal.

Balancing family and work is a creative challenge. However there are still interesting opportunities if you keep your mind open. Case in point: Since I had taken 2 nights to shoot fireworks away from family and a number of circumstances that would bore you to tears, I ended up staying at home with my sleeping son, while my wife, daughter, and mother-in-law all went to enjoy the show a mile away.

With the baby monitor outside, I explored what I could find from the back yard. When the fireworks started I was thrilled that I COULD in fact see them and a little disappointed that I had a “beautiful” streetlight and a number of electrical lines, obstructing most of what I could shoot.

The collar on the 70-200 created new opportunitySo what do you do? Do you pack up and watch fireworks on TV? No. Could you try something else? Sure! I knew I was far away from the show, but if I used my 70-200mm lens, I could pull the show closer. Maybe just photograph the fireworks that are above the lines. However that proved to be a rare occurrence.

So what else could I do? When I went to rotate the camera to portrait, I remembered, the “Tripod collar ring” could also let me rotate the entire camera 360 degrees.

If you’ve ever been captivated by the idea of painting with light. This is a fantastic opportunity to explore what happens when you paint with fireworks. Using the tripod to steady my camera in every other way allows you to experiment with rotational movement.

I tried a few different movements. Sometimes I'd just spin the camera 360 degrees, other times, rotate just a quarter, pause, rotate again. This is certainly more art than a science. Predicting any results is very silly excercise, unless you have alot of these under your belt. I just took pleasure discovering the results.

If you want to to try this yourself, guess what I did in each shot. THEN try some things out for your self. Discover! Trust me, the results are surprising and exciting.

Before post production	After post production

At first you will find a lot of garbage, but DON’T DELETE ANYTHING in the field. Get it back to your digital dark room. You can compensate for some things like exposure, but you can save some amazing shots, just by tweaking your white balance, adjusting your clarity and black levels. Check out this example to see what I mean.

So take a look. If you want to see them larger, clicking any of these will take you to the full gallery. Leave a comment, what’s your favorite? What do they make you think of? If you want any of them, order a print, or buy a download from the gallery. I hope you enjoy!

 #1 In the Wind

#2 Rainbow Rocket

#3 Emergent Galaxy

#4 Electric Whirlpool

#5 Spiral Nebula

#6 The Whoville Tree

#7 Pixel Galaxy

#8 Fire Wheel

#9 Stream and Radiate

#10 Wormhole

#11 Double-Take

#12 Green Lure