With the July 4th holiday upon us, I thought I’d share some tips for taking great fireworks pictures.
1.Steady the camera. Use a tripod with a remote shutter release if possible. Fireworks on a dark night require long exposure times and a steady hand. Trying to hold your camera and a bottle of beer at the same time could result in unnecessary beer spillage.
2.Frame the shot. With fireworks, it’s important to anticipate where the burst will happen. It’s key here to be sure you’re pointing the camera at the fireworks, not the hot bodies in front of you on the grass, no matter what they’re doing.
3.Long shutter speeds. To capture the intensity of a fireworks display, setting the shutter speed to “bulb” or the manual “fireworks” indicator generally gives the best results. Though trying to find the tiny settings on the camera, in the dark and after a few glasses of wine, can take longer than the fireworks themselves.
4.No flashing. The light from a flash only reaches a few feet in front of you and won’t illuminate the sky. Using a flash on a dark night to record fireworks will result in black images and annoyed spectators around you. Offering them a beer usually works to soothe eyes ruined by white flash spots or simply turn off your camera’s flash.
5.And MOST IMPORTANT! Don’t start drinking at noon if the fireworks begin at 8pm. In cases like this, not only have cameras been forgotten entirely, but so have most events of the evening. I speak from experience.
Have a safe and wonderful holiday weekend!
Thanks to Debbie at Delicious Baby for the Fun Photo Friday!
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The flight time to Brussels was only an hour and a half. However, by the time we’d taken a bus from the hostel to the main station in Killarney, onward from Killarney to Cork, and finally another bus from Cork to the Shannon airport – we felt as though we’d already had our fill of travel that day and we haven’t even stepped on the plane.
At the corner of the Rue de l’Etuve and the Rue du Chene, stands the fountain of Manneken-Pis (which is Dutch for the “little pee man”). This cherubic statue is adorable. Standing a lofty 24 inches from the top of his curly head to his chubby little toes, this naked fellow is one of Brussels’ most famous landmarks. Bending his knees and smiling with glee, the Manneken Pis stands forever happily peeing into the fountain. He actually has over 760 different outfits to match special occasions in the city. Heads of state from visiting countries traditionally bring along a Manneken-sized version of their national costume. Some of his more popular attire includes Elvis, Mickey Mouse, Nelson Mandela and St. Nicholas.
By 11am on Saturday, most of the 136 teams were congregating at Gaspar’s Grotto in Ybor City. Cheryl and I were running under the team name What Boundaries? Live Your Dream!, we were joined by teams of Mojito Banditos, Boozehounds, Thing One and Thing Two, Oceanic Airlines, Where’s Waldo, and the final winners of the race, Yay Broccoli!
At noon, the envelopes with twelve clues were given out and it was a sprint to the start. Since we knew the race would cover Tampa, Channelside, Hyde Park, and Ybor, our strategy was to grab the cable car first, take it to the end of the line while reading and deciphering what clues we could on the way. We’d do the clues far away first, then work our way back to Ybor. 
It was an incredible day. Racing down streets, calling friends and family close by to look up Tampa trivia, a good joke, or to help find a bus (none were running on Saturday, so WE found ourselves running instead), interacting with strangers, and making frantic Google searches on the cell phone to find a phone number for the place we’d have to feed each other fried cheese and take a picture to prove it. 
We hit the 
Along the way we discovered exactly what this race is all about – learning about the city you live in, seeing it in a new light, making new friends, and challenging yourself to move outside of your normal boundaries. We were running down the streets, finding secret pathways we’d never knew existed, passing restaurants we’d read about but had never tried, helping other teams complete their clues, and all the time having a blast. 
Our finish time? An impressive two hours and fifty-seven minutes out of the five hours allotted. We were number 41 out of 136 without other teams penalties figured in (if you skipped a clue, you received a thirty-minute penalty). Not too bad at all.
Of course now our bodies are protesting mightily about all of the running we’d done and will be sure to let us know every time we try to move over the next few days, but it was so worth it. The Great Urban Race was a Great success!
