On Guy Fawkes Night, me and a fellow photography student, Joe Clifford, went to Alexandra Park, at the top of Bath, aiming to get the best view possible of the fireworks which would be displayed in the sky that night.
Upon arrival, at 6:30PM, to our surprise, the park was filled with people! Young children, old couples, photographers with intimidating cameras and teenagers in massive groups. Even after arriving nearly an hour before the main display, coming from Bath Rugby Club, there was no room for us! We managed to squeeze ourselves into a nice spot and attempted to set up a tripod but eventually took it down to stop the glares from the fellow spectators who were trying to move further forward. When the display began, we had just about found the settings we would use for the night. For me, they were roughly as follows: an aperture of f4, a shutter speed of 1/125 and an ISO of 6000.
Unfortunately, I had only packed my 50mm prime lens, so couldn't achieve any wide angled shots however, we managed, and came away with some photos in which we were quite happy with. The images alone were very plain, so we decided to take them into photoshop and change them a bit. For me, this involved adding the moon which was sadly behind us, as well as exaggerating the stars that were above us.
Below are some of the final products from the shoot. The images, though shot in RAW, came out very noisy, due to the high ISO, but for a first firework shoot, we were pleased.
