{"id":1622,"date":"2011-07-02T21:12:45","date_gmt":"2011-07-02T21:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/homesteademporium.wordpress.com\/?p=1622"},"modified":"2011-07-02T21:12:45","modified_gmt":"2011-07-02T21:12:45","slug":"fireworks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homesteademporium.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/02\/fireworks\/","title":{"rendered":"Fireworks!"},"content":{"rendered":"

We spent the evening at the ocean last night, waiting for the fireworks which began at 10:22 pm.<\/p>\n

While waiting we visited with good friends and watched droves of people coming and going. It was a very nice relaxing evening. Relax-evening. Something we don’t do often enough.<\/p>\n

We ate cheese bread sticks, fresh vegetables and dip, fruit candies, freshly fried mini-donuts, shared some hot dogs, and cotton candy. The dinner of champions, at the beach, on the 1st of July, Canada Day.<\/p>\n

I spent several hours yesterday afternoon preparing my camera, and myself, for snapping fireworks photos. Since fireworks are very bright, but the skies are very dark, I knew snapping decent photos wouldn’t be as simple as putting the camera on “auto”.<\/p>\n

I knew had I better be prepared, or prepare to be VERY dissapointed!<\/p>\n

One article I found quite helpful was by Pro-blogger, Darren Rowse, which I found here:\u00a0http:\/\/www.digital-photography-school.com\/how-to-photograph-fireworks<\/a><\/p>\n

Between reading online, checking out other photographers fireworks photos, flipping through the two books I have here on the Nikon D300, and playing with button after button trying to decipher what every bit of information was trying to explain, in what seemed to be “greek” to me, I went out that evening feeling ‘somewhat’ confident that I ‘might’<\/strong><\/em> be able to get some decent shots.<\/p>\n

The only problem was, once we got there, I wanted to snap photos of my children and friends while we were visiting, and the crowds of people, etc. but I didn’t DARE<\/strong> tamper with my settings! Silly me didn’t even THINK to at least bring along my little point and shoot! Total “DOH!” moment there.<\/p>\n

To give you an ‘idea’ of the scene a couple of hours before the fireworks, I managed to get one ‘half decent’ shot, well actually, it’s a horrible shot but at least shows where we were at for the fireworks!<\/p>\n

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Oh and look, I even managed to get Shaylah’s head in the shot. Proof I was not there alone. lol<\/p>\n

By about 10:15, this entire area, from one side of the beach to the other, was FULL of people. So glad we got there as early as we did!<\/p>\n

My camera was set up on the tripod, but I panned it around every once in a while just to snap a photo to collect ‘info’. This night was all about learning for me. I wanted to see what every change in the lighting did to each photo. At this point it wasn’t about getting the ‘perfect’ shot, or even a good shot, simply getting shots to see what goes on with my camera at these settings, in this situation, as the lighting changed through out the evening.<\/p>\n

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There’s Joshua and Alesia! So nice to have everyone there. My husband was ‘on duty’ (auxiliary RCMP) that evening but was able to make it over to us before the fireworks began. That was a nice treat and unexpected!<\/p>\n

The fireworks started out small (I think our area fireworks were probably fairly small in comparison to large urban areas, but I haven’t seen a whole lot of fireworks, so I’m not really sure). <\/em>But it was a lot of fun, and very pretty!<\/p>\n

This first one looked all red and white on the water, so very Canadian!<\/p>\n

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At this point I hadn’t a CLUE what I was doing. I had read that you could hold the shutter open for as long as you felt\u00a0necessary, but since I’m really still learning, I had NO clue how long that should be, so I just did what I love to do, and “winged” it, releasing the shutter each time when it ‘felt’ right, and hoping for the best!<\/p>\n

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Once I began looking through my photos on the computer, I realized a couple just happened to be sitting, snuggling all cozy with one another, pretty much in line with my camera. I love it! Turned out so pretty in so many of the shots. I have NO clue who they were. Ha! I have to say Thank You! for helping make the shots even prettier. Gotta love Romance on Canada Day!<\/p>\n

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Through the 15 minute show, I just kept watching, and pressing down the shutter button, and releasing when I felt the timing was right.<\/p>\n

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That’s how I ended up with these streaks of light.<\/p>\n

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And even though I know I ‘real’ photographer can do so much better, I’m actually pretty happy with my first try!<\/p>\n

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And I think I may just try again when we have our next fireworks this summer.<\/p>\n

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A lot of the fireworks were actually not all that bright, which I think made it a little more difficult to truly get ‘great’ shots.<\/p>\n

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Some were very artistic and\u00a0turned out really cool.<\/p>\n

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Then there were the bright and colorful ones.<\/p>\n

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Other’s were simple, yet still very pretty. Just as though lights of rain were falling from the skies.<\/p>\n

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So I kept shooting, and shooting.<\/p>\n

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Learning with each explosion of lights.<\/p>\n

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And that’s what it’s all about! Learning, and creating memories!<\/p>\n

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If you snapped some July 1st Fireworks photos, please share!
\nOr those of you celebrating on the 4th of July, get brave with your camera’s, get out there and snap some photos!
\nI’d love to see them!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We spent the evening at the ocean last night, waiting for the fireworks which began at 10:22 pm. While waiting we visited with good friends and watched droves of people coming and going. It was a very nice relaxing evening. Relax-evening. Something we don’t do often enough. We ate cheese bread sticks, fresh vegetables and […]<\/p>\n

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