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Ten years ago, the MV World Odyssey was docked in San Diego. It would be my home for the next 100+ days for the Semester at Sea Spring 2016 voyage as it circumnavigated the globe from Mexico to England.
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Montgomery Township typically celebrates Independence Day with fireworks several days before the 4th of July. I live near a great location that overlooks the high school where the township holds the Independence Day celebration. It is away from the crowds. I got there just before sunset. One car arrived before me but there was still plenty of space to set up the tripods and cameras. In 2023, one camera wasn’t in focus, so I made sure all of the cameras were set up, framed and focused. I confirmed that the memory cards were inserted, and the batteries fully charged. Also, since the cameras were all on tripods, I made sure that the “vibration reduction/stabilization” was turned off. As it got dark a few fireflies were visible, but since the fireworks are orders of magnitude brighter than the fireflies you won’t see both in the images. I set the cameras up as follows: Base ISO (50, 64, or 100 depending on the camera), f/11, and 8 second exposures with the intervalometer set to repeat until stopped. It appeared that the folks running the show waited for a train to pass before starting. The fireworks started just before 21:25. It took a little bit of time to confirm the framing, focus, and to start the interval timers.
Images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.
Images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.
Images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.
Images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.
Images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.
Montgomery Township Fireworks from previous years. 27-June-2024, 29-June-2023, 30-June-2022, 28-June-2018, 28-June-2012, 30-June-2011
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My family and I have attended the township’s fireworks since we moved here in 2001—except during the pandemic, of course. When they started hosting the event at the high school, I began photographing them regularly. It became a bit of a tradition. Over time, I started documenting the entire event—not just the fireworks display, but also the atmosphere leading up to it: the golden light at sunset, the anticipation, the small gatherings of families and friends on blankets and lawn chairs. We haven’t gone in the last two or three years, though. With the kids out of the house, I think my wife no longer feels a reason to endure the heat, the bugs, or the hassle.
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I noticed this dragonfly on a stick while on my afternoon backyard walkabout. This was on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. It is a male Common Whitetail Dragonfly (Plathemis lydia) also known as a longtail skimmer. I see them quite often in the back yard, more so now that I have enlarged the pond. I consider them valuable since they consume mosquitoes (both adult and mosquito larvae). This one seems to have part of its rear wing damaged. You can spend hours watching their aerial acrobatics while guarding their territory.
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