Ten Thousand Hours Photography

10,000 Hours Deliberate Practice Learning the Art of Photography

Shooting Fireworks an Alternative Approach

Hours: 4 to 26

The Old Approach to Shooting Fireworks

Fireworks at New Year
Conventional Fireworks Shot – New Year 2017 – Zell am See, Austria

The standard advice for shooting fireworks is:

  • Use a tripod
  • Use a cable release or wireless remote to trigger the shutter if you have one
  • Turn on Long Exposure Noise Reduction
  • Shoot the highest quality file you can
  • Set the camera to a low ISO, such as 200
  • A good starting point for aperture is f/11
  • Instead of choosing a shutter speed, set the camera to Bulb (B) which allows you to keep the shutter open as long as you want. Expose for the entire fireworks burst. You can even keep the shutter open for multiple bursts
  • Turn off the autofocus, otherwise it might have difficulty locking onto focus. Manually focus your lens at infinity.

Conventional shooting leads to conventional images – see my thoughts on Philosophy of Photography

This time I chose to do almost the exact opposite.

If you have any ideas or thoughts, please post comments below.

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My set-up:

  • Hand held
  • ISO 1600
  • Manual exposure
  • 1/320 speed
  • F2.8 – as open as my 24-70mm lens goes

Points of agreement

  • Shoot RAW – as always
  • Noise reduction left on – again, as usual
  • Manually focus on infinity – AF just doesn’t work well in darkness.

What you get is not what you usually see:

Gold and silver orbs of soft bokeh
Not the usual fireworks photo – soft orbs of gold and silver bokeh – looks better the bigger you can view it – click to see more.

Or combined to make a diptych:

Fireworks Diptych
Fireworks Diptych – images that remind me of Whistler Nocturne in Black and Gold.

Key Messages for Fireworks Photography

  1. Following the rules, begets conventional images
  2. Experiment
  3. Look at what you get constructively.

If you think I went out with a plan to take shots like those above, please see my profile.  I am sure the term: “happy accident” applies to a lot of creative activities and the above is no exception.

This post was written whilst listening to:

  • The 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky – to represent the conventional approach
  • Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Part – represent my new approach.