I loved the atmosphere of the night, it was busy and full of children having fun, running around with their friends, siblings and parents and playing with sparklers and flashing toys. It reminded me of my young self as I loved Bonfire night and our annual private fireworks show in the back garden, sometimes visited by the Bates which added to the fun.





There were two displays of bright, beautiful and loud fireworks and I'd forgotten how much I liked watching them up close, rather than hearing the mass of bangs all around as I lay in bed.




My favourite ones were the purple ones, and maybe the green ones too, because they really lit up the sky and the patterns of smoke, and look amazing next to the usual golden spray.



Something I discovered was that it is immensely difficult to photograph a firework! You set your iso high - because it's dark, duh - but once the colourful explosions fill the sky, their brightness makes a mess of a photo. And my shutter speed was a little slow so the pictures aren't crisp, and when I tried to fix this my fingers were numb and I could barely adjust my settings in my mittens. I was shivering from the cold for hours but I did enjoy the display and I got some new photos out of it so I guess it was worth it.





I also liked the big ones that looked like someone had thrown a bucket of glitter as high as they could. I went to another display the next night with a few friends and their "glittery" fireworks literally filled the sky as much as I could see and everyone behind me exclaimed, which made me chuckle.


My images may not be sharp or particularly well framed but I still love the mess of sparkling beauty they hold, and I look forward to trying to nail it next year. I used my 1.8/50mm lens on 1/50-160 shutter, F1.8 and 1600 ISO, and I literally clicked the shutter as much as it would let me, looking through the images at warp speed almost looks like a stop motion film!