8 NOVEMBER 20225 – FIREWORKS

Something I’ve never previously attempted is  photographing fireworks, but this year I thought I’d give it a try. I was very aware that I would need to alter the speed (ISO) rating on the camera and bearing in mind that I was shooting in darkness, without a tripod, the settings would need to be quite radical. I chose an ISO rating of 102400 (the highest available for my camera) and a speed of 800^th of a second, not really knowing just what I could achieve.

Because there is street lighting in front of my house, I was in effect forced to set-up in the back garden. I didn’t have a clear view of where my neighbours - who were several doors away - had their bonfire, but that didn’t matter a great deal as I needed to train the camera to the sky, above where the light from the bonfire was concentrated, and waited until the fireworks began.

I spent a period of about 2 hours taking photographs, but because I couldn’t see much through the viewfinder I had to wait until fireworks were exploding in the night sky before releasing the shutter. And really, I didn’t hold out much hope of getting decent results. I was aware that digital cameras could reveal more than the human eye can see, but when I looked at the photographs after I’d taken just shy of 100 images, I was simply amazed.

The colour pallet was a touch restricted - mainly reds, greens (and derivatives of) and strangely no blues - but there was no denying that the images were spectacular, with splashes of colour across the frame, in every which direction, and brighter than I could ever dared possible. I’ve included a selection of the best images.