4th of July

These little kids said it all for me, between the little girl's dress and everyone carrying flags. This is Patriotism! I like the young girl's expression on her face as she talks to the boys. It's so typical at that age. These girls were part of the huge crowd at the Safety Harbor 4th of July Celebration. It seems that everyone in Pinellas County was there for the big event.

Of course, the 4th wouldn't be complete without fireworks and there were plenty of them! I've just posted one of my favorite shots of the evening, but there were many. It was hard to find a place to set up away from the crowds, but my friends, Lyman and Tony managed to find a good spot where no one could get in front of us. They even spoke with one of the people responsible for the fireworks show, so we'd know which direction they were going off. It made it easier to set up our cameras in advance.

I started the show with my 55-250mm lens, but soon found out it would be too long. I quickly switched to my 18-55mm lens to shoot the remaining fireworks. They were shot into the sky fast and furious and it was a magnificent display. There were 14 of us from my photography group all together and we had a great time.

I set my camera on ISO 200, F16 and the Bulb setting for the shutter speed. I manually counted off the seconds, with predominately white colors for less than a second, red about 2 seconds and blue 3 seconds. It worked pretty well.