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Creating Fine Art Fireworks Images with Blending

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Welcome to my first video tutorial!  While shooting fireworks this summer, several photography friends asked me how I make my fireworks images.  As I love shooting fireworks, I decided to make a tutorial on the process I use, from image capture to processing to blending.  I have inserted the slides from the video in the blog below as a quick summary, however the video has a lot more information in the narration, including an actual demonstration of the blending process in Photoshop.  

 

There are a few elements that any great fireworks image should have.   An interesting landscape or foreground to anchor the image.  Some twilight color in the sky.   A series of fireworks bursts to fill the frame that are well exposed and interesting.   Taking a fireworks shot with one press of the shutter button that properly exposes the foreground, retains color in the sky, and properly exposes the fireworks is very difficult, if not impossible.  This is where the method of image blending comes to the rescue!   

 

Here are some tips for the image capture process.  It involves taking an image you will use as a background BEFORE the fireworks show begins of the landscape or foreground that will anchor your composition.  Once you have the background material recorded on your memory card, its time to adjust your settings for taking images of the fireworks bursts.

  

 

Here are some processing tips for editing your background image:

 

 

Here are some processing tips for preparing your fireworks images as layers for blending:

 

 

Here are the steps for blending your background and fireworks images together in Photoshop:

 

 

And here is the finished image after the blending process for the example used for this video:

 

 

Here are some links to other galleries on my website that have many images created using this technique.  Please enjoy them, and then give this technique a try on your next adventure photographing fireworks!   

 

Fireworks on the National Mall

Fireworks at George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate

Fireworks over sunflowers at Burnside Farms

Related Images:

2F7A7229-234-185-blend-Lumenzia 2F7A0010-011-blend-v2 129A6872-copy-2 Consecutive bursts of color! (f13, 9 and 11 sec, ISO 100) 2F7A7229-234-208-blend-lumenzia 2F7A0014-copy Feather like multi-colored streamers! (f8, 11 sec, ISO 100)

Fireworks on the National Mall

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f20, 2.7 seconds, ISO 100

f20, 2.7 seconds, ISO 100

What takes a fireworks image “to the next level”?  If you guessed having an interesting landscape to anchor the scene, then you are correct!   Living in Northern Virginia, one of the things on my photographic “bucket list” has been to photograph the fireworks over the National Mall on the Fourth of July.  I chose to shoot the fireworks from a position near the IWO JIMA Marine Corp Memorial in Rosslyn, VA.   It provides an elevated viewpoint of the National Mall from across the Potomac River, and most importantly, features a great alignment of the Capitol Building, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial, directly under the fireworks.  I have to say the fireworks over the National Mall is a grand display that does not disappoint.    

 

f16, 2.5 seconds, ISO 100

Some of my favorite images were a series of bursts featuring our nation’s flag colors of red, white and blue.  

 

f20, 8.4 seconds, ISO 100

These images were shot using a Canon R5 with an EF adapter and a EF 100-400 mm L IS USM lens.  F-stops ranged from f16 to f20, the focal length was set to approximately 110 mm, and the exposures were usually between 3-5 seconds.  The fireworks bursts in each image are from single exposures and not composite images.   I did take a shot of the illuminated monuments under a dark blue sky before the show started (f16, 4.7 seconds, ISO 100), and then used that as the background layer to blend the fireworks into the scene.  This allows you to not overexpose the fireworks while maintaining a well illuminated landscape, while retaining some dark blue tones in the sky.  You can see more images from this amazing fireworks display in my gallery  “Independence Day Fireworks on the National Mall.”  

Related Images:

IMG_9268 IMG_9293_4_5_tonemapped IMG_9313_4_5_tonemapped IMG_9327 IMG_9335_6_7_tonemapped IMG_9396 IMG_9439_40_41_tonemapped

Seeing the Unseen: Fireworks Over the Historic Manassas Train Station

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Cameras allow us to see things differently, or in some cases, see things we normally could not see at all.   This can be especially true for long exposures.   In the case of fireworks, adjusting your aperture and shutter speed enables you to turn burning embers, bursting and then falling in the sky, into colorful streaks of light.   Generally speaking, your aperture affects the thickness of those streaks, while your shutter speed affects their length and number in a single image.  I used a very small aperture of f22 to create very thin streaks from multiple bursts.  Exposures ranged from 3 to 12 seconds, with longest ones having the most intense concentration of streaks in a single image.  A second technique used here is the blending of two exposures to make each image.  A 20 second exposure with no fireworks, taken at the end of the show, resulted in a well lit train station for the foreground, while shorter exposures were used to capture the fireworks overhead.  The foreground was blended with each of the fireworks images using luminosity masks or the “lighten” blend mode in Photoshop.   Each resultant image captures a unique combination of shapes, colors and patterns in their unique moment in time.   I intentionally put the images into a slideshow that mimics the constantly changing fireworks you would see in the night sky.   Only now, you can see the unseen.  Enjoy!

Related Images:

EG5A8617_1200x800_U_100_Fixed-Height Winter 2015 2F7A7320-print-3 2F7A7229-234-185-blend-Lumenzia 2F7A0010-011-blend-v2 129A6872-copy-2 Consecutive bursts of color! (f13, 9 and 11 sec, ISO 100)