accomplished
my_partner_doug set up the camera for me to take some pictures. This checks off one of my annual goals, learning more about the fancy digital camera. (I also studied the settings after we got home.) If I counted right, I've met 11 of 19 goals so far this year: better than half.
This is a multicolored fountain, part of the ground show. Several different fountains were lit and I got some good shots of all of them. This one had red, green, gold, and silver parts all doing different things; plus the smoke. I like the way they left different traces in the image. You can tell that the image is focused and steady, despite the squiggles, because some of the silver bits are crisp balls.
The starburst category contains such things as peonies and chrysanthemums. This is a nice red peony showing bright crisp trails with only the wiggle from the burning powder flying through the air, plus some smoke off to the right.
Shaped charges include fireworks that create a particular image, like this starfish with several individually visible long bright arms. The framing is off-center on this one, but I like the light/dark balance. I only managed a few of these because there weren't many, but I also got a ring and a heart. Alas, I missed the smiley face and the saturns.
Composite images include everything with two or more independent fireworks during a barrage. This one shows two starbursts in different stages of deflagration. I love the contrast in brightness and texture. Compare the straight but fuzzy stem under the crisp but slightly wiggly flower, vs. the overall fuzz and wiggle of the larger burst above. The latter was a crackler that made a constant snapping sound.
Shooting was a challenge. The tripod made aiming difficult. (So did the fact that fireworks appeared in four or five places along the horizon, rather erratically for a while before anyone got around to presenting a coherent show.) The camera didn't fire as soon as I pressed the button. This drove me nuts. I had to learn to compensate for the lag, which was a lot, and wasn't even constant. But when there was a good barrage or a fountain going, I could figure out the then-current pattern and work with it to catch pretty much what I wanted. I learned that I could double-sight for aiming, with my right eye looking through the lens and my left straight at the horizon; but not the other way around. It was kind of nerve-wracking to be standing up to my knees in weeds, using my target and aim senses, with a piece of equipment that had a delay between pulling the trigger and getting the result and that also didn't want to move easily, while there were explosion noises going off constantly. (Farmemory has its quirks. But at least it wasn't a gun I was wrestling with, for all I kept wishing the camera had a really good gunsight for aim.) Plus I managed to scrunch both my back and my right hand while trying to manipulate the gear; I gave up and left before the show actually ended because I couldn't hold the pose any longer. Once I got the hang of the arrangement, though, and until my body demanded that I desist, the shoot went pretty well.
Part of tonight's purpose was just to go out and make some new and interesting mistakes. After all, if you're not making any mistakes, then you're not learning, you're coasting. Here's to not coasting. I tried all kinds of screwy things out there.
All told, I shot 330 photos in about half an hour. I kept dozens that were good, or at least interesting, and got a bunch of terrific ones. I am proud of myself for checking off a goal, and quite pleased with the photos that I produced. I'll show you another set later with the "Impressionist fireworks" images that were out-of-focus and/or wobbly but still interesting due to light effects. One cool thing about shooting fireworks is that it often doesn't matter if they're sharp or not: the pretty colored lights continue to be pretty colored lights even if bent into bizarre configurations.
Please give a big round of applause to
my_partner_doug for chauffeur service, setting up the camera, and loaning me his equipment. I wouldn't have been able to do this photo shoot without him.Sponsor More Photos
In addition to what I've posted here, I have dozens of other photos, including:
* Lots of images of fountains including a volcano-like gold shower, a silver shower, golden fish, and a squiggly one that's mostly red
* Various colors and styles of starbursts in different stages, mostly peonies
* A blue ring and a red heart from the shaped charges
* A few other composites with two more more things blowing up together
Several artists have posted samples of their sketch pages, with more sketches being available if people want to sponsor some. I'm trying something similar with photography. So if you want to see more, $1 will get you two extra photos. (You can use the PayPal button on my profile page, or contact me for other options such as postal mail.) Your choice of small size like these, or full-size; I'll try to remember to put them behind a cut. Larger versions of the sample photos are in a gallery on my LiveJournal Scrapbook.
July 5 2011, 09:32:17 UTC 10 years ago
I'm always surprised by the fireworks people will set off in my neighborhood. Tennessee allows you to have nearly anything; people set off fireworks in their driveways that fall short of the big commercial/publicly sponsored shows only in each rocket thingie having fewer sparks. And not a lot fewer sparks at that.
My brother loves fireworks and Oregon only allows smoke bombs and sparklers so when he was visiting during the 4th last summer he bought so many fireworks we couldn't set them all off that night. I still have half of them packed away in the coat closet, because there was no way they were going back on a plane. I will suggest we set them off for our birthday/half-birthday celebration when Jake is here at the end of the month.
I liked what you said about "if you're not making any mistakes you're not learning, you're coasting." In my music I tell myself you want a few things to go wrong in a set. If nothing goes wrong you're not stretching yourself enough, but obviously you don't want a lot of things to go wrong, so you shoot for (so to speak) a happy medium.
Thoughts
July 5 2011, 16:34:53 UTC 10 years ago
Yeah, one time we drove down to visit friends and caught Boomsday. That was awesome.
>>I liked what you said about "if you're not making any mistakes you're not learning, you're coasting." In my music I tell myself you want a few things to go wrong in a set. If nothing goes wrong you're not stretching yourself enough, but obviously you don't want a lot of things to go wrong, so you shoot for (so to speak) a happy medium.<<
In my writing and other activities, I'll often pick a new thing to push the envelope when practicing. For a really important project, I'll drop back to things that I consistently do well. It's a good balance for me.