July Fourth in Jonesborough TN

July Fourth Fireworks.

June and I took her brother Jerry to the fireworks show in Jonesbrough TN last night.   It was the end of Jonesborough Days and the people were everywhere waiting to see the show.   We got there only about 30 minutes before they started but were able to find a decent parking spot right across the highway from where they were shooting the fireworks off.   Turned out to be a great spot to photograph the show.

I was on the side of Highway 11E with cars going by all during the show.  I was able to block much of the light from cars headlights by standing next to a large black pickup and extending my tripod as high as it would go.   This had the added benefit of giving me some protection from the drivers watching the show and not the road.  It was a pretty clear for a summer night in Tennessee and the little wind was at our backs so the smoke blew away from us.   The one challenge with this spot was we were almost too close.   I was using my wide angle 17mm lens and still couldn't get them all in.  

Here's some info on how I shot these.   I set the lens to 17mm, f/8.0, manually focused at infinity, and set the camera to ISO 100, and used daylight white balance.   I used a wired remote shutter release and set the camera to BULB.  As soon as I would hear one launch I would press and hold the button on the shutter release.  I would then hold it open long enough to get several bursts of fireworks.   I found getting more than four bursts in one shot tended to be too much.  One burst can be interesting but two or three seemed to be the best.  I post processed these in Lightroom to add +36 vibrance and clarity.  I adjusted the tone curve to cut down on the  shadow setting, which cut down on a lot of the smoke.

There are 10 photos in my photo gallery.

I hope you enjoy these.