Less is More?

Photographing the Hamilton, MT firework display was really just for fun. I figured the grand finale would be the only great, possible opportunity but I went prepared for whatever. The location we choose to park at afforded us a great view of The Bitterroots which I was hoping to have as a backdrop to the show to give a sense of place. I was all set, we just needed it to get dark for the show to begin. That wouldn’t happen until 22:35.

At 22:20 I got out of the truck and started to set up. The Bitterroot River was in the foreground, the mountains in the background. To bring them all into play as elements along with the fireworks, I went with the Z70-200f2.8 and zoomed practically to 200mm. In the first test shots, I could see a couple of stars in the evening’s twilight over the mountains so I figured I was golden. Then it kept getting darker as the first few fireworks exploded. About halfway through the show, the twilight had slipped away and all I was left were the trees in the foreground. Well I thought, I’ll keep shooting (I shot way too many, easy to do with the Z 9) and I’ll get one from the finale that I like. As it turns out, the ones that Sharon and I like the best were not from the finale, but from earlier. That seemed ass-backward to me so I thought about it. The whole show was gorgeous, the finale one of the best we’d seen, why were the simpler explosions more photographically satisfying? I think it comes to the way I arranged the elements, they demanded less. Montana has mountains, trees, and big skies, and fireworks, well they just take second fiddle to all of that. It was a great lesson to learn. And we ended up with more than one image we really like bringing back a smile from the evening!