I decided to try something different for the 2014 New Year’s Celebration because I wanted to focus on my new photography hobby. Old Alexandria, a town in Virginia across the river from Washington, D.C., has a First Night Celebration featuring many venues for the whole family and concludes with a fireworks show over the harbor. I decided to try my hand at taking photos of the fireworks.
The price of tripods seemed to be a little expensive and since I had blown my Christmas budget, I decided to shoot handheld! This was going to be a challenge, so I visited a couple of photography websites and researched shooting fireworks. All of the experts strongly recommended using a tripod. Interestingly,I did read one article that said you should try to brace yourself against something solid if you didn’t have a tripod. That was to be my plan.
When the time came for the fireworks show, I was lucky enough to see a parked pickup truck with a great view of the show. I set my Canon camera to Shutter Priority and 800 ISO and then braced myself against the pickup truck’s bed. I then noticed it was a police pickup truck! Since it was a solid foundation, I thought, what the heck and starting shooting from my new fully braced position. Fortunately, the police must have been busy somewhere else or asleep in the cab because I was not chased away by them.
The pictures came out fairly nice considering my setup and rudimentary skill level. Take a look on the Everyday Photos page and see for yourself. I am looking forward to my next photo outing and hope to improve on the quality of my photographs. Keep shooting!
C'est la vie 