Celebration of Light 2008

Celebration of Light is a yearly event that happens in the summer off the shore of English Bay in Vancouver. Three countries compete for bragging rights during this event in the world’s largest offshore fireworks display that is in sync with music.

Being one of the larger events in Vancouver that can attract up to over 300,000 people is the HSBC Celebration of Light. Previously it was called Benson and Hedges Symphony of Fire but with Vancouver’s decision to get rid of Tobacco companies sponsoring things I guess HSBC wanted to call it something completely different.

I recently purchased a Canon Remote Shutter Switch (RS60-E3) and wanted to try out taking photos of fireworks. It has been a while since I last attempted to take photos of the fireworks and this time I came a bit more prepared and experienced or so I thought.

Robyn and I found a spot just below the seawall among the rocks which gave us an unobstructed view of the barge and the fireworks. I set up the tripod among the rocks and noticed that there was the possibility of my feet getting wet by the end of the event.

The photos did not turn out as bad as I thought they might. I used the bulb setting with an aperture of 8.0 as well as an aperture of 6.0 to see what I could get as a result. The exposures were anywhere between 1-4 seconds and using the remove shutter switch allowed me to enjoy the fireworks without having to look through the camera the whole time to ensure I got them in focus.

USA was the country to wow us with their firework spectacular. The first one on the previous Wednesday was Canada who did a Godzilla themed show. Both were quite impressive and unfortunately Robyn and I will not get to see China’s display nor the finale on the following Saturday as we will be in Hornby Island for holiday time.

In the end I ended up with over 150 photos of the fireworks as well as some wet feet since where we were sitting was near the level of the water. It was nice to be able to enjoy the fireworks with an unobstructed view and thanks to Robyn’s suggestion of sitting where we did we enjoyed the night’s light display.

Some people say they have troubles capturing fireworks but I seemed to do a decent job and I wouldn’t recommend doing it without a tripod. If you do not have a shutter release you can use a timed shutter shot, but I would not recommend trying to hand-hold a 1-4 second exposure.

Have you had any success capturing fireworks?