Helen Stephenson's Chislehurst Fireworks Bonfire and Funfair Pictures, 4th November 2006

We arrived at the Recreation Ground soon after 6pm, when the gates opened, and I proceeded to look for photo opportunities in the funfair.

My eye was caught straight away by this ride, and I took a lot of pictures of it, but most of them weren't very good. We never did work out whether the ride was meant to represent a caterpillar or an alligator!

The next thing to catch my eye was the mini ferris wheel, which I've photographed both stationary and in motion.

After that, it was on to one of several roundabouts, captured here stationary (on the left) and in motion (centre and right).

The bonfire was lit at 7pm, and due to my fairground activities, I didn't get myself a good pitch for the bonfire and couldn't get my camera up high enough on the tripod. I closed the tripod's legs together and used the tripod as a monopod, which made it a little taller, and shot using a wide aperture and a high ISO and managed several shots that caught the essence of the flames. Once the fire was lit, the guy didn't really stand out much, so my hoped-for pictures of the guy's face melting never eventuated.

The bonfire lit up the surrounding trees beautifully.

I've put the actual fireworks onto a separate page, which can be viewed here.

Once the firework display was over, I returned to the bonfire, where I got an uninterrupted view and took some pictures of the embers, which still made quite an impressive sight.

Stephen was champing at the bit for a burger by about then, and so we went and patronised Puka Tuka, where the food really was pukka.

I then took a few pictures of the cuddly toys, most of which were on the St Christopher's Hospice stall, although the picture with the dartboard came from a different stall.