Learning from fireworks photography faux pas

Here is a story of a partial failure in capturing fireworks this past Fourth of July. Is there a reason for sharing this story? You bet! Find out below.

Why?

“Why on Earth would sharing a story on not getting the image you tried for be a reason for an article?” There is a tendency to share all of the winning photographs and to totally shelve the less-than-stellar images. It’s human nature. Readers see all of the solid photographs and begin to lose heart in their ability to keep up. Because you are only seeing the “A” work and never the “B-roll” images that land on the cutting room floor, newer photographers become frustrated. They don’t know that solid photographers fail forward — we make mistakes. A LOT of mistakes.

The difference between an up-and-coming photographer and one who is established is the established photographer has probably made more mistakes than the up-and-coming photographer has even attempted to make.

The story

Last year, I shared a story from my photographer friend Heidi Mixon about a technique called Focus Pulling. I didn’t get the opportunity to try it out last year so I looked forward to creating some cool images during this year’s fireworks. Well, that was not to happen because I didn’t study hard enough and practice before the actual event.

If I had practiced rather than thinking I understood the process because I read about it, I’d have learned that the manual focus on my lens was not locked down the way I thought it would be. Below you can see the less-than-wonderful results I achieved because I couldn’t get the camera back to an in-focus position.

Most of my initial attempts at the Focus Pulling flowers technique turned out like this one above.

fireworks photo fail — As the evening show continued, I started getting a little more definition.

The lessons

A few lessons came from my experience.

Make sure you practice a technique and not just read about it before going out to make images. Especially, if you’ll do it at an event that will not be repeated for a year!
Know that there will be failures when you are trying new techniques. And that’s a good thing. We learn more, and more in-depth when we make mistakes than when something comes too easy.
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Mistakes are nothing more than learning opportunities. The more learning opportunities you attempt, the faster you will become a better photographer.

fireworks photo — Near the end of the display, I got a little closer to the goal… Next year I’ll be better prepared and more ‘practiced’ before the actual fireworks get started.

Not the only mistake

Not to be outdone, I also made another error with my second camera. I set it up to capture a time-lapse of the fireworks show. A time-lapse sequence makes it possible to capture plenty of images to make a video which is another way to tell a story with your camera.

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In spite of overexposing the captures because I was capturing in RAW, I was able to save this portion of my shoot. Most definitely a reminder to reconfirm settings before commencing to photograph

It also gives you raw materials to use Photoshop techniques to show extra bursts on a single frame.

“So Bob, what was the mistake here?” I didn’t double-check and set the exposure to 3.2 sec at f/11 ISO to 800 when it should have been ISO 200. Two stops over the exposure I wanted to be led to images that were quite overexposed.

Saved by RAW capture

If I was capturing the time-lapse images in JPEG, almost all of those files would have been toast. Because I used the RAW format, I was able to recover 85-90% of the images. That enabled the time-lapse. It also made it possible to create the final blended image that headlines this article. Before going out to photograph, especially something as rare as fireworks, it pays to review ideas and concepts before going out.