2017 Seattle Fireworks - A Lesson in Photography

Hello again!

I figured I'd try something new this time and post about my recent experience with capturing fireworks on the 4th of July in Seattle and discuss a few of the lessons I learned along the way.

Let's start with the obvious. Get there early.

Yes, you may be forced to sit around for a few hours but you'll have the ability to carve out a space that fits you, and your gear, before the hordes of people come. I always recommend researching your venue prior to arrival so you can easily find a solid vantage point to shoot from but sometimes that research is invalidated for a dozen different reasons so be sure to leave yourself time. I had to change my location at the last minute due to the police closing off the whole neighborhood to non-locals. Whoops.

Be upwind from the smoke. That's more or less a critical point that a lot of people forget when scouting their locations. You can check the direction of the wind easily these days. Make sure you do. :)

Once you find a suitable location, be sure to take a few test shots just to see how you like it. If it doesn't look good in the daylight hours, it generally won't look good after dark. Just make sure to leave room for the fireworks. A shot like this one allows you to see how everything will look in the background and still leave plenty of room for the fireworks in the foreground.

Just remember, it's not necessary for you to force yourself into the middle of the crowd. You can find plenty of locations which may seem a bit out of the way and simply use a long lens to zoom in of which there are numerous benefits, least of which is not bumping elbows with 5000 other people. Nothing worse than having people walk in front of your camera, tripping over your tripod, blocking your shots, etc... Just find a better vantage and enjoy the overall experience tremendously more.

Some of the larger venues will do a warmup, or a few shots in the air as a general announcement. When they do, you can adjust your shots off that. This shot below was their warmup, roughly 10 minutes prior to the show commencing and it allowed me to make last minute adjustments immediately prior to shooting.

Remember, when you're shooting in the dark, not everything on your camera is going to work like you wish it. While the foreground will be intermittently lit, you don't want to try and focus everything on the fly, or let your camera try to make decisions for you. Just set everything to manual, including your focus, and go for it. I can't stress this more.

Be sure to take advantage of lulls in activity to make necessary adjustments and while you're at it, snag some cool photos like this one. Sure, it's likely not an award winner but sometimes these single flare photos are still rewarding.

Along with manual settings, you'll really want to shoot in bulb mode, and use a remote trigger of some kind. It's really the best way simply because you can control the outcome of your shots, and the timing of it. This takes practice getting everything right though and if you don't do it right, your shots will come out too dark, or bright, or you may miss the action entirely.

It should be fairly needless to say but every now and then you see someone show up to an event without a tripod. Don't be that guy. Bring a tripod... and since you're going to be shooting long exposures, be sure to bring a spare battery. The D810 chews through batteries much slower than any camera I've ever used and I still burned through two of them for the evening. Long exposures just eat batteries up. :)

One of the most common questions is what settings should you set your camera at. Honestly there is no good answer to this, only a range that I'd personally recommend which would generally be from F8 to F11 but even that is subjective. The key is to know that you'll likely want a longer exposure to capture the entirety of the flare itself but not too long. I run with ISO64 personally and have no difficulty but 100 works as well.

It's also important to never forget that you're shooting in the dark, in manual, at multi-colored objects and your camera will likely have no idea how to properly set your white balance. Set it on manual and just aim for something mid ground for the evening, like 5500k, and adjust from there. Most of this can be adjusted in post but your shots will look tremendously better if you nail this in camera.

The key to remember is that it's all art, every single bit of it, and for that reason there really is no right or wrong answer. Just get out and start changing settings and go with what works for your style.

Some of my favorite shots wouldn't be considered traditional fireworks shots but I love them nonetheless... so just experiment and go with what you love. If you don't love it, how can you expect anyone else to? :)

I have dozens more from this particular trip but I think you get the point.. I hope. :)

oh and regarding the finale.... yea it's going to be bright, and long. This is difficult to accommodate but it's possible.. It'll be one big ball of light if you're not careful but if you time it right, you can nail it.

Hope this helps. I'd love to field any questions if you have them so please, ask away!