fireworks on the 5th

For some reason, here in Madison we like to have firework displays that are NOT on the 4th of July. Maybe it is so that they will not compete with each other, but a rumor is that security is cheaper on non-holidays. Anyway, our local park (Elver Park, right around the corner from us) shot off a great display on the 5th of July. It is also pretty cool that the church that we go to shares a property line with Elver Park. We opened up our back lawn for free parking, bounce houses, snow cones, and even face painting. More on that later but my goal was to get a couple shots that showed the space and the fireworks above. In doing so I needed to actually overexpose the fireworks a bit to get the right ambient levels to show the grass and whatnot. I also experimented with covering the sky with my hand for the first 10 seconds of the shot and then uncovered the sky for the second 15 seconds or so, that way the grass would burn in a little more than the sky and fireworks.

It seemed that this year the fireworks were a bit brighter when they exploded; cool for seeing bright lights but not cool for the camera. These shots of just the fireworks below we timed to start after the initial burst of light to just capture the trails of color.

I wanted to show the church in the foreground, but it was a bit dark and too big to paint with light, but the sign works. I opened my shutter for the exposure (turned out to be only 10 seconds of so here) and then fired off my flash to light the sign. It took a couple tries to get the flash at the right brightness to match the fireworks.