Helen Stephenson's Chislehurst Rotary Fireworks Pictures, 8th November 2008

It was raining during the afternoon, so I didn't make a trip to the recreation ground to watch the preparations for the evening, so I wasn't able to get any really close pictures of this year's guy. (By the evening, safety ropes were in place in readiness for the bonfire being lit, when it gets pretty hot!)

This year's guy was wearing a suit belonging to one of the Rotary Club members. I hope he had no further use for it, as it was consumed in flames during the course of the evening! The guy was wearing a lace ruff and lace at his wrists, in keeping of the time when Guy Fawkes was at large. His face wasn't as fearsome as last year's guy's face, but with such big ears that I did wonder whether some of our local members were indicating a dislike of some prominent current-day figure with big ears!

I made several attempts to photograph the bonfire, which was lit by arc lights on my arrival. The sky was orange due to all the sodium vapour streetlights reflecting off the clouds. It was too windy for long exposures to be particularly successful, but I've picked the best one.

Once the bonfire was well alight, the guy was quickly consumed by the flames. The two pictures on the right show him being surrounded by flames just before he caught alight. The pictures once he was alight didn't work very well, as the Rotary Club member's old suit burnt so fiercely that the camera couldn't record the flames as anything except a bright white patch.

Last year I took several successful pictures of the nearby trees lit by bonfire light, and even had some good pictures of the crowd standing in front of the trees, but due to the wind, such pictures didn't work very well this year as there was too much movement in the tree branches. The one below came out reasonably, but the rest have gone in the reject pile.

I moved myself and my tripod away from the bonfire once I had enough pictures of it burning fiercely and went and found myself a vantage point for the fireworks display. It's not necessary to get right to the front of the crowd as the school playing field where the fireworks are set off slopes and you can get a good view from anywhere - particularly as most of the action happens up in the air, anyway.

There was a delay in starting the display as a number of latecomers were still arriving and in the interests of safety, they were allowed in before the lights were turned off so that we could enjoy the fireworks. It gave me plenty of time to make sure that my camera was in "fireworks mode": B exposure, 100 ISO, noise reduction off, manual focus with my lens set to infinity, f16 - and all I had to do was make sure that it was pointing in the right place. I did have to adjust it when the fireworks started as I was aimed a little too far to the left.

I kept my thumb on the remote cable release button and each time a new series of fireworks started, I opened the shutter. I closed it again when I thought I had enough light trails. Some of my pictures got too many light trails as I left the shutter open for a bit too long! As a rough rule of thumb, if a series of low-level fireworks is going up and forming a pattern, it's good to keep the shutter open to get the whole pattern. while for high-level fireworks, three or four shell bursts is sufficient, and less will sometimes suffice.

When the last firework had gone off, the crowd headed towards the exits, although some stayed for some food or a look around the funfair. I hauled my tripod back across to the bonfire, now a heap of glowing embers with small yellow and purple flames above it. I took a few shots of it, and decided that I liked this one the best.

I wanted to photograph the funfair and lined up on the teacup ride for some pictures, both with the ride stationary and also in motion so that I could capture the light trails. I think I got my definitive light trails, which can be seen in the picture on the right; and my stationary picture is on the left. In the centre is an animation of the various pictures I took all the way from the stationary one to the final set of light trails. Dial-up users are probably best advised not to click on it, as it will open up seven large images.

While photographing the teacup ride, it started to rain, so regretfully I had to put my camera away and break down my tripod and declare the evening's photography complete. Stephen and I repaired to the burger van for a quarter pounder with onions each and then we walked home through the drizzle.