Watching the Fireworks on the River

Last night I went to see the Lafayette and West Lafayette fireworks on the river for the first time. I had an idea of where they were going to be in the sky, but not an exact idea. I was thinking that I could make a picture with the courthouse and some of the other landmark buildings of the city in it. I was just a bit off in picking my spot I guess as my initial plan did not work out. I did get some nice cityscapes though as I waited for the fireworks. Once plan A was gone it was time to plan B which was just to shoot the fireworks alone. This is actually easier as you don’t have to worry about exposing for the buildings. You can just concentrate on the bright light in the dark sky. I used many of the tips that are on my 10 Tips for Photographing Fireworks post from July 2nd to make my images. This isn’t the be all end all list, but it is a good starting point. I was playing with my exposure times in bulb mode trying to make that perfect shot. I wanted a lot of trails without any stray light or debris. Sometimes a great shot is ruined by smoke or a rogue shot.

Editing the Fireworks Shot in Lightroom 5

For this photo I had a couple of things in mind. I set my lens as wide as I could so that I had some room for the fireworks to go off. They generally stay in the same location, but they stray just enough that I set it wide so that I wasn’t watching the fireworks through the viewfinder. That meant that I had to crop in. For multiple shots I cropped horizontally, and for single bursts I went vertically. After cropping in I adjusted the exposure and highlights here. I did not go too far on either one as it causes some discoloration. I was walking a fine line here with overexposing the photo. I wanted as many bursts as I could get into a frame so I tried some that were a bit longer than I wanted. I also cranked up the vibrance and made a subtle saturation adjustment.

Photo Sale!

This image and all of my others on my website here are now 50% off until Labor Day. I thought that after the long winter that we endured a photo sale was in order. If you like the photo above just click on it, and you will be taken directly to the image on SmugMug. If you just want to browse my online portfolio you can click on the link below. At the checkout enter the code ‘summer’ to get 50% off of my images.

50% Off