Happy Fourth of July

It's a bit late, but Happy Fourth of July. At least I took this photo on July 4th. It was a fun afternoon spent with family in my old home town... Eastman, Georgia. This small town fireworks display takes place at the high school, same as it has for decades. I considered just leaving the Nikon at home and enjoying the show, but I had taken a couple of weeks off without a single photo and that just wouldn't do.

Fireworks are pretty easy to capture if you have a tripod, a locking shutter release cable, and even decent glass. This image was a seven second exposure at f7.1. I shot it at ISO 100 with a 24-70mm f2.8 lens. The only problem with this slow shutter speed is the blurring tends to make the burst look a little plastic. But it is a necessary evil to capture the action from ground to sky.

I tried several different compositions, including closeups. But my favorites all seemed to be images that captured the flight of the shell from the ground and the starburst at it's peak. Call it storytelling, I suppose.

It would be so wrong of me to not take advantage of my tiny platform here to offer up my thanks to the men and women serving my country at home and abroad. And to pause to remember those who sacrificed so much for my freedom. Happy Independence Day.

At The Fair

There’s something about the fair— a midway with carnies hawking “the world’s smallest woman”, livestock shows complete with 4-Hers and blue ribbons, pig races, and virtually anything you can imagine deep-fried on a stick. What more could you want? Do the calories in a wedge of chocolate dipped, frozen cheesecake on a stick count if you eat them at the fair?

I hadn’t been to the Georgia National Fair in years. So when the opportunity arose last week, I just had to go, and I had to take the Nikon. Strangely enough, this was to be the setting for my first ever attempt at fireworks. I don’t know how I've been taking photographs this long and never tried them before, but thanks to a shutter release and a tripod, I managed a few frames of the fireworks, the lake, and the midway in the background. The wind didn't cooperate, blowing the fireworks back over my head and the smoke right into the lights of the fair. So the setup that I had at first selected, with my 24-70mm f2.8, had to be modified. The slow and considerably less sharp 18-200mm f3.5 was the widest lens I had, and my only recourse. The fireworks shot posted here was a 13 second exposure at f5.6 at 18mm. The trip was fun and the results weren't too bad. I couldn't bring back enough funnel cakes and fried Snickers for everyone, but I hope you enjoy these shots.