52 Weeks — #27
The story behind the fireworks photo, plus other random images
Sometimes you just get lucky. This week’s lead picture above was taken, obviously, on the Fourth of July. It’s not a composite. It’s not AI. It’s not photoshopped.
And the circumstances behind it, as with every photo you shoot, has a story.
Each year, the nonprofit that my wife now runs has a midsummer conference, usually in late June or early July. The conference always fell the weekend of our kids’ dance recital, which left this somewhat hopeless parent with the task of getting two girls and boy in position to go on stage for a four-show weekend. And despite all the prep work — and it was a lot — that Jill did in advance, something was always bound to happen, and it did.
This particular year — 2010 — was more complicated than usual. Jill’s conference stretched over the Fourth of July. At that time, Ben was living in New York, having just started work on “Billy Elliott.” Our girls, Kate and Emma, did the annual recital and then hopped into a car with me and Nicholas to go to New York.
Joe Frey, a family friend and the husband of one of Jill’s coworkers, was celebrating the holiday with his kids and family in the small Long Island community of Bayville. He invited the five of us to join in the celebration and Ben wasn’t working that day, so we embarked on the 40-mile journey from midtown Manhattan.
Pause for a moment and think about my situation: Two teens and two who were on the cusp in a van navigating Times Square on our nation’s birthday. And at this point, I could count the number of times I had driven in the city on both hands.
It took us about an hour and a half to get to Bayville, where we were greeted by Joe and his extended family. The kids had a great time and as day moved in to night, we started prepping for the fireworks. I had just started taking photography seriously and was excited to see what I could get with my camera.
Growing up on the Texas Gulf Coast, I was used to seeing fireworks shot into the air magically from a boat in the Gulf of Mexico. But I had never been up close to them being launched from the beach.
Strings of sparklers were put in the sand and lit, then it came to the main event. I held my camera — a crop sensor Canon with a cheap 75-300 zoom lens — as steadily as I could while lying on a towel with the kids beside me. I saw every firework through a viewfinder that year until I managed to somehow grab this shot.
It’s an all-too-rare feeling when you’re taking photos, knowing you have gotten “the shot” and that you don’t need take any more. Don’t ask me why, but I knew I had it. I quickly scanned the playback, saw everything somehow was in focus (despite a shutter speed of only 1/60th of a second), and then turned off my camera.
Every year, I still shoot the fireworks. Sometimes I’m more successful than others, but I’ve never been able to replicate the success I had that day. It definitely made the trip home with four exhausted and sleeping children a lot easier.
Here are the other photos from the week:
I hope you’ll pick your favorite(s) and let me know your thoughts. Also, share this post to Substack’s Notes or leave a comment. Your support helps boost this feature on Substack and also in my heart…
If you are interested in purchasing a print or the non-exclusive rights to one of the digital images, please contact me via email.
See you next week!
Hands down, that firework shot is incomparable. Second favorite would be Arlington Cemetery because…well, no explanation necessary. Both spectacular and heart-jarring for two opposite reasons.
The fireworks shot is incredible.