Neighborhood Fireworks

Here in Utah we celebrate the arrival of the Mormon Pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. In essence we have two days of fireworks in July and this year our Legislature which gets most things wrong finally did something right and legalized certain forms of aerial fireworks. In our neighborhood we gather together in a nearby circle and enjoy a fun night of shared fireworks, sparklers, mosquito bites and popsicles! I took along my camera for a few snap shots, and trust me that's all they are. But it's been a long time since I posted and I wanted to get something up for you to see and to mention that on Monday we'll be attending a local AAA pro baseball game the Bee's) that will have serious fireworks afterwards and I'm hoping to get nice shots of those.

The kids love Sparklers!

Dual fireworks because you can't have too many pyrotechnics!

An illegal aerial that was a two staged spinning helo type thing-a-mabob

Looks like a Christmas tree to me

Going vertical - legally this time!

The leader of all this is actually licensed to use fireworks and has done many pro shows!

Love the purple onesA dual aerial burst

And finally the finale

And that's it for now, hopefully I'll be able to post more early next week, keep your fingers crossed for me for Monday's baseball game and fireworks.

Happy Shooting!

Riverton City Fireworks July 2 2011

We had our monthly family party on Saturday July 2nd, (got some great family shots and too much sun) afterwards my brother in law invited us to watch the fireworks put on by their city. We met later at a corner that over looked the city park and would allow us to view the fireworks and avoid the crowds. We set up on the parking strip of a Wells Fargo bank on the corner of Redwood Road and 12600 south. As I was setting up I began talking to the family setting up next to us and met an awesome photographer namedDarwin (who happened to know my bro-in law-small world)  we talked about photography the whole time which is one of those things about photography that I love, no matter where you are if you find someone else that's into photography you've made a friend. He gave me some great tips that really helped since this was my first time shooting fireworks with the D7000.   Despite the sprinklers turning on towards the end of the display necessitating a hasty retreat to the safety of the parking lot we had a great time, and I was pleased with the shots I got. Here are a few;  all needed some cropping (love that 16mp resolution) and a little post work, nothing fancy just some subtle levels or curves work. All were shot with the 18-200mm VRII , manual mode at various exposure times, and at various focal lengths, aperture was f/11 (great tip from Darwin) and triggered with a cable shutter release.

one of my favorites from the night!

I liked the rogue cascade burst at the topanother rogue cascade

There wasn't too many of these high cascading shells, but the ones they did have were fun

Green was a popular color

The burst at top reminds me of a Asian Lily

A stack of the big ones going off together

Feathery trails

A fun time! It was great getting to talk to Darwin, I hope you'll check out his shots on his flickr page, he has some amazing wildlife and action shots on there!

I took some shots on the 4th when we did our family fireworks but I'll spare you those as they're much less impressive...

Hope you had a great weekend,  happy shooting!