Fireworks as Art

Fireworks - two nights in a row! Read the previous post to see images from last night's extravagant Red, White & Boom fireworks production in Columbus - the largest such display in Ohio. Tonight, it was Dublin's turn, and as the launch site is only a few miles from my place, I went on over to see what I could do, and experiment with a new (to me) technique.

The Dublin celebration included a performance by Peter "Do You Feel Like We Do" Frampton, and the area was packed. I thought I had a good, largely people-free locale to shoot from, but when the fireworks started, I found that a number of large trees were blocking too much of the view. So, it was to an unplanned Plan B, and I ended up finding a good spot to jam the Jeep in, jump out, and start shooting with about 1/3rd of the show left.

All the tips I offered in the last post applied tonight, with one exception. I used a different technique that might be termed "focus distortion". The lens of choice was Canon's superb 70-200mm f/2.8 II. By locking focus on the fireworks burst, and then twisting the zoom ring to either fully zoom from the widest angle, or conversely zoom out to the widest focal length from full zoom, one can create some interesting effects.

Once again, these images were made with the Canon 5DS-R, in Bulb Mode with shutter control via a remote release. ISO was set to 100, and aperture was f/16. As always, click the image to expand it.