Wednesday, July 09, 2014

Canada Day in Greely: Fireworks

On the day after Canada Day my neighbour told me the firework display was the best one they'd ever had here. I got a fair number of pictures of the fireworks going off but it isn't easy doing it and I learned something. For fireworks, use a wide angle lens. I had put the long lens on my camera, which was great for getting close to the performers on stage, but not so great for getting the action in the sky.

The photographs show some of the set up for the fireworks display. The people working on them didn't want anyone coming close to their stuff and I didn't want to get close either, so I got the ground set up in progress from a distance.


The tubes inside the wooden frames are mortars. A firework goes into each tube from which it is launched to explode in the air making pretty pictures so everyone watching will go, "Ooh!" and "Ah!"

You can get an idea of the size of the mortars from the people setting them up. I don't know what the wrapped up stuff in the foreground is but I'm sure it's important.


To me the setup doesn't look like much, but the show lasted about twenty minutes and was totally awesome.

The first two firework pictures are of fireworks that were not part of the show. They were being set off privately a street or two away from the park while the singers were performing.


From here to the end are pictures I took within about the first five minutes of the show. The trick to getting a shot like the one here is to follow the feint trace of the firework as it rockets upward and then to snap the picture just as it explodes. This is definitely not easy with a long lens. Looking at them now, I think all the pictures of the fireworks turned out very well.














So there you have it, Canada Day in Greely. I hope everyone had a happy Canada Day in 2014.

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