My 2015 Fireworks "FAIL" photos and what I learned from them

Fireworks photos are one of those things that tend to look the same no matter who takes them. To be honest I wasn’t even planning on shooting photos this time around until I was invited to a roof party. Click here to download two DNG files.

I figured why not go out and shoot as we were supposed to have a nice view of the festivities. Though we did have a nice view for enjoying the fireworks it was not the best for shooting photos of them.

The issues I ran into was the building across the street from me. It turns out that the fireworks were not going to be much higher than that building thus not allowing me to capture the full explosion without the building getting in the way.

My exposures and settings were all proper but I quickly decided to switch to the 70-200 and attempt to shoot much tighter shots of the fireworks. This worked out fine but I didn’t get anything mind blowing.

For the future a clear view of the fireworks from the ground will allow them to look more massive. Having foreground elements will add dimension. And scouting the location way beforehand will pay dividends into the future.

This was not a complete fail, I learned something, got some pretty good photos and was able to share my thoughts. Until next year.