Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Ruby Tuesday (#2) and Wordless Wednesday #14 (Tuesday Edition): Rockets' Red Glare


"Rockets' Red Glare I"
Atlantic Beach, NC - July 2008 (Click to embiggen)

Ruby Tuesday - Are you red-dy? Wordless Wednesday - Button Image by Smarmoofus

"Rockets' Red Glare II"
Atlantic Beach, NC - July 2008 (Click to embiggen)

Ruby Tuesday - Are you red-dy? Wordless Wednesday - Button Image by Smarmoofus

The best laid plans -- or Plan A's at least -- often get derailed. If Plan A for this past Fourth of July had gone the way it was supposed to, you'd be seeing this shot taken from the deck of a tour boat. But it didn't go that way, so Plan B has you seeing it as it went off directly over my head at Atlantic Beach, NC. The air was so heavy the smoke just lingered there, making for some very interesting effects.
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50 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very impressive fireworks.

♥ Denise BC ♥ said...

Hi, Mojo
A show of lights, like the fires of artifice, these are magnificent. Thanks for sharing.
hugs, Denise

Felisol said...

Dear Mojo,
Wow, what an overwhelming ruby fireworks shooting.
Caught in a glimpse.
From Felisol

maryt/theteach said...

Great fireworks, Mojo! :)

Maddy said...

Ooo you sneaky doing RT and WW in one post [what a good idea!] Although I'm sort of cheating myself as mine won't be up until later tonight as we're still on Monday.
Cheers

RW said...

Those are awesome! It is so damm hard to capture fireworks, great job and good RT.

EG CameraGirl said...

The sky really lit up with those fireworks. Happy Ruby Tuesday. ;-)

Gemma Wiseman said...

What a delightful, glistening show of red! These fireworks must have been awesome!

Pam said...

very cool :)

MyMaracas said...

Amazing fireworks, and I love the sense of motion you've captured here! Beautiful.

By the way, I see you like writing prompts too? There's one in the upper right corner on my blog you might like. Hope you'll come over and play.

Vicki

Ralph said...

Fabulous shots. The red is vivid, the explosions seem real and the smoke obviously enhancing the brilliance of the fireworks.

Francis Scott Key would be quite impressed!

Mimi Lenox said...

Very cool!

I'm up here.

etteY said...

stunning photos!

Anonymous said...

Gorgeous bright red fireworks!! :)
Happy Ruby Tuesday!!

ellen b. said...

Beautiful red flare!

BNS said...

I love fireworks. These red ones are dazzling! Happy Ruby Tuesday.

Bobbie in Hawaii

Jim said...

Hi Mojo, this is great for RRtU! Great going and Happy WW also.

My WW is on the other blog, has Adi, and is GREEN. Jim's Little Photo Place
http://jimmiehov6.blogspot.com/
..

Ladynred said...

Stunning fireworks! Happy Ruby Tuesday!
Ruby Tuesday

Leora said...

Now I've got the Star-Spangled Banner song going on in my head..."and the rockets red glare..." Great fireworks, and Happy Ruby Tuesday.

Norm said...

thats fabulous! very wonderful and perfect capture..
here's mine sweetnorms and travelnorms..

Ladynred said...

Sorry my link didn't work. here it is
"Ruby Tiuesday

Dirkjogt said...

Waw, impressive.Never tried to take photos of fireworks. Maybe I must try in the future.

Anonymous said...

WOW what a show that must have been - love the 2nd photo - take care, Judyx

jams o donnell said...

Great shots. I bet it was a great display. Happy WW

SandyCarlson said...

Beautiful bursts!

Sherrie said...

Awesome fireworks!!!

Sherrie

CharmaineZoe said...

These are great fireworks, the colour is stunning & your photos are fantastic! Happy Ruby Tuesday :-)

Susan Demeter said...

Wow!!!! Those are spectacular shots! Very impressive :)

Happy WW :)

My WW entries for today are at:

Pastyme With Good Companye

The Paranormal Blog

Nuttin' But

Please stop by if you have a moment :)

marcia@joyismygoal said...

Fireworks are so Nostalgic for me they take me right back to my childhood watching them on warm summer nights w/ my siblings

eastcoastlife said...

Oh wow! That's a spectacular fiery red fireworks! Wheeeee!

docemdy said...

You still got a fantastic shot with Plan B. I have yet to get a nice shot of fireworks.

~Just Me Miranda~ said...

Oh, love the shot, its awesome.

Pea in a Pod said...

Whoa!!! The second shot is PERFECTION! Mine is HERE if you have a time! Thanks!

Dianne said...

these are really wonderful MoJo!

fireworks are so difficult to capture so these are extra impressive

Raven said...

Wow! What wonderful shots. I love them both. I haven't gotten to see any fireworks for a while so I lawys enjoy the pictures. I really love that second one.

sealaura said...

Hola Mojo, Cool Shots. The second one looks like a picture from space. Since I am new to your site, I am guessing that Ruby Tuesday is not necessarily a call for red pics but in case you are interested I took a picture of windmills at dusk (as the car was moving...yikes) but it came out a little ruby/fiery.

carmilevy said...

You switched gears perfectly and managed to bring home some seriously gorgeous photos. I gasped when these first loaded. I know how hard it is to "get" fireworks...exposure is always tricky, you never quite know where to look in the sky, focusing is even tougher.

Yet these look like they ought to be in a magazine. Neat.

Mojo said...

I set the camera to manual and (oddly enough) used the same baseline exposure I use to shoot hockey games (1/250 sec @ f/2.8). Even though the meter would probably vehemently disagree with me, I know that as soon as the bombs start bursting in air I'm going to have way more than enough light for that exposure to work In fact, that may be too slow a shutter (which might account for some of the "blown out" look in the second shot especially); I could probably shoot it a stop faster than that (or stopped down to f/4.0 or 5.6) and still get ample saturation.

The problem I had with this series was that I was using way too much lens. I'd expected to be a good bit further from the "action" than I was, and didn't feel like schlepping my whole bag around all night, so I just twisted on the 200mm and left the rest behind. Bad move as it turned out. (The 200 was also the fastest lens I had at the time I hadn't yet bought my 85mm f/1.8 which would have been perfect for this). We were so close to the "impact area" that we had to dodge a few falling -- and still glowing -- ashes.

Overall, I probably took 200+ shots in bursts of 3-9 exposures at a time (another habit borrowed from shooting hockey). Most of them wound up on the cutting room floor as you can imagine, but I got a few that were worthy of sharing.

Next time I'll bite the bullet and carry the bag. Or better yet, I'll put together one of those modular harness systems that allow you to distribute the gear (and the weight) so it's not all focused on your shoulder. I think the one I saw was put out by either Tamrac or LowePro. Either way, it's on my gear list!

Unknown said...

wow! these shots are great! i never had a perfect fireworks photo.

Livio Bonino said...

wonderful fireworks

CK Ng said...

Those were wonderful fireworks! Happy WW! :)

stan said...

that must be quite a sight!

Rambling Woods said...

I'm sorry that it didn't go exactly as planned, but you got great results anyway..The last fireworks I went to the smoke just lingered too..

Barb said...

Plan B looks pretty awesome!

Princess said...

Those are just one of those nano-moments that's right on the dot.
Great WW pictures.

MYM said...

That's very impressive.

Amber Star said...

Those are awesome pictures...thanks for posting them so we can see.

Alice (in BC Canada) said...

Wow, these are RED, haha. Very good photos for Ruby Tuesday.

Alice at I Was Born2Cree8

Minkydo said...

Great photos!

Patti said...

Awesome fireworks photos.

Happy Belated Ruby Tuesday!