Vindauga

Wah took some wonderful photographs of fireworks. I have been trying for years to get good pictures of fireworks. This process might be improved if I used an actual SLR instead of my point and shoot on manual settings. Still, some interesting things came of it.

But let me explain the situation. We went to Stone Mountain. Everyone had told us to go early. “What’s early?” I asked. Most everyone suggested that by 5pm would be fine. At 4pm traffic came to a dead stop on the highway leading into the park. I don’t know if they ever closed the park; apparently it is the only time of year when the park reaches capacity. KJ and I parked and went on a hike taking the Cherokee trail around the park. Its something like 6 miles and not a bad walk. It certainly was nice to get away from the crowds for a little bit. Since the trail headed around the back side of the mountain it got real peaceful.

Coming back around the North side we find a cute little grotto that back right up against the mountain, which is where I became master of all I surveyed.

Eventually though we were headed over towards the lawn in front of the memorial. [Amusing note, the "world's largest Civil War Memorial," which highlights heroes of the South and the Confederacy, faces North. Sure, it simply an accident of the shape of the mountain - the North side being the side with the steepest face - and, I guess, it can be seen as a kind of FU to all them damn Yankees but I still think its funny.] The lawn stretches down from the pavilion, just east through some woods of the commemorative village, which has rides and shops and junk (basically, its a cheesy roadside attraction). On Friday and Saturday nights normally they do a laser light show against the backdrop of Lee, Jackson, and Davis. It goes without saying that the lawn was likely to be crowded. KJ and I thought that we might be able to handle the crowds. We were wrong.

This was our first view of the crowds at roughly 6pm (looking up from about 2/3rds of the way down to the mountain face), the show wasn’t going to start until 9:30. First the regular laser light show and then the 4th fireworks extravaganza.

And this is looking back down towards the mountain. Needless to say, KJ and I nixed the idea of sitting here. This meant however that we had to find another location from which to view the display. After much discussion and wandering around we decided that we would head over to the opposite side of the lake (there are basically three lakes which ring the mountain) to the golf course. We thought that, if we were sly, we could get out by one of the greens, sit by the water, and enjoy the show. We started out avoiding all the grounds keepers but they were so nice and cool that we eventually found out that they just didn’t want us walking on the greens, otherwise, we were totally kosher. So, we ended up finding a nice quiet spot.

There was only one other family at our location. A real nice couple and their kids. The dad offered us beers and everything. They had found the location by accident while trying to “cut the corner” and had decided to stay. KJ and I had seen them while checking out the carillon across the lake and decided that we wanted to be “there.” You can see the carillon, which was at the 1964 World’s Fair, on the left. I didn’t get to hear it play but it seems like it would be cool. We couldn’t see the bas relief (largest in the world) from here but since the paper said that fireworks would be shot off the top of the mountain it didn’t seem like it would matter.

However, all the fireworks from the laser light show (no one told me that there were fireworks as part of the laser light show) were shot off fairly low, most barely broke over the surface of the trees. The shot above gives some idea of that. It was interesting, though, to hear the music that accompanied the laser light show. Lots of themes from movies but also stuff like “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Someone that I met recently, who is not from the South, claimed that the laser light show helps folks to understand the Southern mentality. I’m not sure that I agree but then I haven’t seen the show yet either.

This is probably my favorite shot of the fireworks; not because it is a particularly good shot of fireworks but because the mountain looks so cool lit up by the glow. This was a 6 second exposure at f2.8 with my Canon Powershot A610. Clearly, for fireworks, its too long.

This one is 3.2 seconds and clearly shows the fireworks better. Also, it shows off the redness that Wah doesn’t have. I’m not bragging - his shots of fireworks are great, always have been (he took some back in Starkville once and just guessed at the settings, this was on film mind you, not your fancy, can check the image, digital stuff of today).

This was also 3.2 seconds (have I mentioned that I love that aspect of flickr? the one that tells me what all my settings were when I took the picture?). I like the little arcs of light shooting out. You can see something else here as well. I failed to set up my tripod in the light, so my camera was crooked, so I felt the urge to straighten the images, which caused me to lose most of the light reflected off the lake. Oh well.

This was also at 3.2 seconds (apparently I decided that was a good time). I really like all the different colors but otherwise the image is a little boring.

And this is just because I wanted to post another