"...bombs bursting in air"

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I have photographed Morgan Hill's fireworks display several times and wondered if I really needed any additional photos of fire bursting in air. Starting with the parade in the morning followed by a bar-b-q, the day had already been long. And darkness would not arrive until well after 9:00pm.
Fortunately I had arranged to meet up with others from the photography club, or I might have stayed home.
Whether I needed more fireworks photos was irrelevant. Photography is a journey and I could always benefit from more practice. Even if I deleted every photo, the experience of taking them would strengthen my skills

Hoping to capture a unique image (or two), I used a technique I had read about in an online article. I switched the camera to manual focus and set it for infinity. Then I adjusted the shutter speed to "bulb," which would keep the shutter open as long as the release button was depressed. (I didn't actually keep my finger on the button. I used a cable release attached to the camera.)
The first burst showed me where to point the camera. Then I held the shutter open with my left hand while holding a square of black foam in front of the lens with my right hand. Each time I saw a burst, I pulled the black foam away for a second or two, then put it back in front of the lens to block the light (while still holding the shutter open). Doing this several times during one long exposure produced images with overlapping bursts of color.

An added benefit of this method is that I could watch the full spectrum of the show. Once the camera was set up, I did not need to look through the lens to get the shots. Not all the bursts are in the same place in the sky, so some were missed completely and shots had only a fraction of the bursts, but overall, I found the results very pleasing.




I also took some individual shots.

I liked the simplicity of the lines of this first one, and the abstract quality of the dancing lights falling off the flowing gold in the last one. You can view more of my fireworks images on my flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/suebrazelton/