July 4th

We didn't do much to celebrate the 4th of July. Life was just too crazy. We were packing up for our trip to the OBX on the 5th so we decided to let it kind of slide by this year.

However, we got a little festive on the 3rd when our neighborhood put on a fireworks show. We grabbed a few packs of sparklers from the fireworks stand and had some sparkly fun while waiting for the show.

I should have grabbed my tripod. I knew I wanted certain shots of sparklers and I knew I'd need a slow shutter speed to get them and I knew my hand (or any hand) couldn't keep the camera steady enough at such slow speeds to avoid blur. But noooooo, I, of course, forgot the tripod.

A good trick for avoiding blur at a slow shutter speed without a tripod there to steady your camera is to brace the camera on a body part. Since I was sitting, I pulled my knees up to my chest and braced it on my knees.

Want to take similar pictures of sparkler trails? It's all about the shutter speed. I just played around with mine while we sat there. I tested longer shutter speeds and checked to see how much of the trail I captured. If it wasn't enough, I slowed the speed down some more. The longer you leave the shutter open on your camera, the more time it has to capture the image. You want your subject to stay as still as possible or else they will be blurry (Charlie was MUCH better at this than Henry) and have them just move the sparkler without moving their body.

If you want to capture the sparks of the sparkler and not the trails, then in that case you will need a fast shutter speed so it can quickly grab those fast-flying sparks!

We got lots of fun shots!

Henry was really wary of the sparklers at first. But, since his brother was doing it, he came around and wanted to do it too. His sparkler trails crack me up. Absolutely crazy, just like him.




And then it was time for the fireworks! My very favorite fireworks are the ones that look like champagne-colored chandeliers!

Charlie, my sweet worrier, was very concerned about our proximity to Dulles airport and if the fireworks show would be dangerous for the airplanes. We assured Charlie that there had to be permits and paperwork and that certainly the airport was aware of all this and that the pilots would fly much higher than our little fireworks show by the time they took off from Dulles anyway -- and very soon after calming his fears - a plane flew RIGHT by our fireworks. Ha!

Happy {belated} Birthday, America!