It has been awhile.  Life does get busy so it is a little harder to sit down and do full write-ups about the experience of taking the photos I did.  I update more frequently on Instagram and I can be found here.  Still, I just wanted to share the few photos of fireworks I took this last 4th of July.

It was nothing too fancy, no huge city display, just a few neighbors shooting consumer-grade fireworks off around the neighborhood.  I did do something different this time for the long exposures to get the full effect of the display.  I got to use a few new tools in addition to my camera as well as a new mode I did not know how to use.

From tutorial posts about photography, there was a mode on DSLRs called "Bulb Mode."  I knew it controlled something but never really looked into it.  That is until I was trying to figure out the best way to time my camera clicks with when the fireworks were going off.  It was a good thing I was sitting in my driveway and was able to look up the information.

So I figured out bulb mode was the best for my shooting situation.  I had my tripod but no cable release.  Thankfully, I was looking into turning a mobile device into a second screen for other photo shoot situations.  So I had recently purchased a USB-to-A/V Digital, a USB-C-to-USB Adapter and an Android DSLR Controller app and was able to pull them out to put them to use.  

Timing became a non-issue but framing in the dark was a challenge since this was not a display done by professionals.  It was done by a bunch of my neighbors, all around me and sometimes all at the same time.

I'm hoping next year I will be able to attend a more formal fireworks show to improve.