When I was a kid the fireworks show started with a puff, then a thud, then you saw a burst in the sky. You waited 10 seconds and it happened again. Then again, until the finale when they fired off a lot of stuff all at once. They were fun but after a while I got bored waiting for the finale. As a young radio man I could do a spoof broadcast of a fireworks display by recreating a poof, followed by “Ooooh” then a thud followed by an “Ahhh.” and at the end several bangs followed by polite applause.
Sitka’s fireworks started with a siren, then a barrage that just continues. To coin an old radio phrase “And the hits just keep on coming” and they came fast and furious. The whole thing seemed like the finale when I was a kid. And then came the finale, with a bang that shook so hard a car alarm went off. And the sirens again, at the end. And a Sitka tradition, boats in the harbor tooting their horns in appreciation followed by a slow of extra-legal impromptu displays of fireworks from the shore; I’ve always loved that we celebrate our revolution with a spectacular display of civil disobedience in the form of illegal fireworks.
I had one camera set up for Aurora shoots and found with some tweaking it worked well for fireworks. The pictures looked like all sorts of things, Some of the pictures looked like super novas taken from the Hubble telescope, some looked like galectic clouds taken from a space probe, some looked like abstract expressionism, some like sea urchins, and some looked like fireworks. I mad 328 exposures of the fireworks, I threw a lot out. Here are 40 keepers.
