Each year Vancouver holds a fireworks competition in English Bay which is just on the edge of Stanley Park. This year 3 groups were chosen to compete for the most fabulous pyrotechnic display. Each group gets one night to show their stuff and this year it was groups from Portugal, Malaysia and the United Kingdom. We were fortunate to be there on the last night of the competition and got to see the display put on by the UK.
Each of the 3 nights draws people in the 6 figures. Streets are closed, police directing traffic and masses of humanity are walking down the streets towards English Bay. Parties are hosted by those fortunate to live in one of the towers with windows facing the bay and those with watercraft from kayaks to sail boats to the occasional yacht are parked in the Bay to take in the sight. The beach itself is lined for miles with people ready for a party. We got there just before sunset and were hard pressed to find a patch of grass where I could set up the tripod.
I have never taken serious pictures of fireworks before and I checked with google for the settings to use and I got some parameters and then it was just trial and error. For a few of the pictures I blended 2 or 3 pictures together to fill in some empty black sky but for the most part I just had to do some cropping and erase some of the lights from cell phones. Why people use flashes for shots a mile away is beyond explanation. For many of the shots you can see the floating heads of the crowd in front of me. Created a bit of an eerie effect.
I was very happy with the results. It was a fabulous evening.
Enjoy.
3 blended shots.
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