While most photographers think of making pictures of fireworks, I believe there’s other things to photograph that make for more compelling photography.
First, let’s talk about the fireworks.
I
think fireworks are overdone photographically, yet I understand the desire to make pictures of them.
Making pictures of fireworks requires us to understand that fireworks are transmitting light sources with bright intensity and a
relatively short duration; in a way, fireworks are similar to flash.
On the other hand, there’s a part of the photograph separate from the fireworks that contains light sources of much lower intensity and much longer duration; these light
sources can include cityscapes, people, etc., and then there’s the night sky's darkness.
Suppose we’re trying to include a city skyline, or other architecture, people, etc., in the same photograph.
In that case, it’s best to work with manual exposure or shutter priority and pick a shutter speed that’s slow enough to achieve our preferred tonality for the cityscapes, people, etc.
I think at least five seconds or slower is a good start.
Remember that, though we need a very slow shutter speed, the slower the shutter speed, the more fireworks we record in our
photograph.
That will require us to use a tripod or something else to stabilize our camera.
Also, if we have the vibration reduction image/stabilization function turned on, we should turn it off because image stabilization or vibration reduction tends to soften our photograph visually.
To make the picture, as soon as we see the
fireworks leave the ground, press the shutter release to begin the exposure.
The result should be that the part of the photograph that is not the fireworks should appear in our photograph as our preferred tonality, as should the fireworks
themselves.
One more thing is to avoid as much noise as possible; to do this, we keep the ISO as low as possible, considering the specifics of the circumstances we’re working with, and ensure that we turn off all forms of noise
reduction.
We turn off noise reduction because, like image stabilization/vibration reduction, it tends to soften our image visually.
Another option for photographing fireworks is to use the bulb exposure, which is found in our shutter speed.
However, this approach is only workable if we photograph the fireworks against a night
sky.
Now, on to the stuff I think is more compelling to photograph.
Specifically, the human activity
that happens on the Fourth of July.
I think this is more complex than photographing fireworks.
We’ll find complexity in the endless variety of human activity and the specific characteristics of light we work with when making pictures.
We make the most compelling photographs when we spend time with friends and family at barbecues and other get-togethers because of the specifics of our relationships with them.
When we photograph stuff like this,
we need to remember all the other things we always need to remember, such as aperture (F-stop), shutter speed, ISO, focusing, framing, content, etc., because that allows us to create compositions that communicate what we want.
If we’re
working in manual exposure mode, we can control all of that and have the most compositional control over our picture; by using the elements of composition we can control sharpness which is tied to focusing, tonality which makes our picture brighter or darker and is tied into ISO, aperture, and shutter speed
Remember, we tie ISO, aperture, and shutter speed to the
compositional outcomes of noise, depth of field, and blur, respectively.
But if the best we can do is a fully automatic exposure mode, then we need to pay close attention to framing in content, which is the only thing we have control over.
Wishing you a happy and safe Fourth of July.
