raloria

Saturday was the final night of this fireworks competition held annually in Vancouver, BC.

( Two videos of Canada's Then And Now... )

It's that time of year once again for Vancouver, B.C.'s festival for perfection in pyrotechnics. Normally I monitor and save images from some webcams of the fireworks, but they weren't updating that late. Instead, I'll track down videos of the shows (there's 3 this year) to share with you.

( 3 videos of China Storm... )

It's that time of year again, when I post webcam pics (and later youtube videos I find) of Vancouver's annual Celebration Of Light fireworks competition.

It's 4 nights, 4 different countries. This year it's USA, Spain, Mexico, & China. The music is simulcast on Shore 104 FM.

The Mexico Show was titled "Journey" and had an interesting mix of music. In fact, I wish the website had a list of the music used for each of the shows, because I'd like to know what I'm hearing. It was also kind of hard to get a "feel" for this show, so I'm looking forward to seeing the video later on.



( 39 webcam pics in clickable thumbnails... )

It's that time of year again, when I post webcam pics (and later youtube videos I find) of Vancouver's annual Celebration Of Light fireworks competition.

It's 4 nights, 4 different countries. This year it's USA, Spain, Mexico, & China. The music is simulcast on Shore 104 FM.

The Spain Show was titled "Hell & Heaven", representing a battle between demons and angels. The music was all very dramatic and from what I'm reading online, people are already saying Spain has won the competition. I'll wait until I see video before I pass my own judgement. ;)



( 58 webcam pics in clickable thumbnails... )

It's that time of year again, when I post webcam pics (and later youtube videos I find) of Vancouver's annual Celebration Of Light fireworks competition.

It's 4 nights, 4 different countries. This year it's USA, Spain, Mexico, & China. The music is simulcast on Shore 104 FM.

The USA show was titled "In The Mood" and the music alone was awesome! Lots of great 50s music and jive & swing tunes! I can't wait to see some video of it. I'll post it as soon as they show up on youtube!



( 31 webcam pics in clickable thumbnails... )

The 4th is over for another year and now at 2:30 in the morning there's only the occasional firework still being set off in the neighborhood.

First of all, I went outside to check and see who was firing things off and found a mess on our car. Grrrrr. Looks like someone shot a painball at it. I cleaned it off as best as I could, but sheesh! Why is it always at us??? We don't bother anyone. Stupid kids.

Anyhoo, I went out to our driveway after 8 p.m. with my camera gear to capture what I could of the pyrotechnics. They were a little slow to start this year, but once it really began getting dark they were off and running. I felt a little more prepared as far as settings on my Canon camera go this time. I put it on Manual, ISO of 100, and on the Bulb setting. The camera was on my big tripod, while my camcorder was on a mini-tripod on the trunk of the car, tilted way up to catch the fireworks on the street to the south of us.

I used the Canon to photograph the fireworks on the next street over to the north. These folks, several groups from the look of it, always put on a great show. The biggest enemy is the large trees that sometimes obscure the view, but depending on where I moved it wasn't too bad. Luckily, I could hear when they fired the things off, so I knew where to aim.

Most of the fireworks going off from the south were practically right over my head most of the time. With the new settings in place on the camera, I got some pretty good shots. I'll post them later today.

Sadly, the video was a disaster. The fireworks were too infrequent and often out of frame. Plus, I had a little accident with the camcorder. :( Once it started to get dark, the wind picked up considerably. In fact, after about an hour, I had to run into the house for my other jacket. I was freezing! Even though the camcorder was somewhat sheltered from a lot of the wind by our trailer, the extreme angle I had it tilted was too much and after I had readjusted the angle on it, it toppled off the trunk and onto the ground. Oooops! :P

I stopped the recording, which was just as well, 'cause by then I realized it hadn't picked up much anyway. Going on 11:00, I could see that things had quieted down considerably. Tired of freezing, I packed up and headed inside. Inspecting the camcorder, it looked relatively fine. The one real spot of damage was to the battery mounted on the back. It's been split apart, a big gap from the plastic base to the main body of the battery. Guess I'll have to track down a new one. As for the camcorder itself, it sustained a few nicks and scrapes by the focus ring, but otherwise it's unharmed. It even seems to work just fine. Sadly, as I said it was all for naught.

I watched the recordings I made on the DVR of the Macy's Fireworks show in NY (thank goodness I could FF through that annoying Bieber kid) and our own Seattle Family 4th fireworks. The Macy's one was big and bold as always, with the 6 barges in the harbor. However, the Seattle one was far and away the most impressive (just as it was last year). The best part was that this year's show really was a miracle. After Chase Bank pulled out as a sponsor after the 2009 show, it looked like the long-standing tradition of a fireworks show at Lake Union would be no more. But once the word got out to the public hundreds of people and businesses in the community rallied together and raised the thousands of dollars needed to put on the show...and did it all within 24 hours! So tonight's show really was for the people and in thanks to the people.

And what a show it was! I swear, the Seattle fireworks show has more variety and colors in it than any show I've ever seen! Simply amazing! If I find a video of it online, I'll try to post it.

Anyway, that's what my July 4th was like...cold, windy, overcast, but still with good fireworks. I'll try to post my pics later on. Got some good ones, I think. ;)

Like I did last year, I'm saving webcam images (from Kat Kam & Numinous Numeriques) and posting YouTube videos of the 4 day competition. :D

This is from the third night, July 29th, with the UK and their theme of "Parasols Over the Pacific".



( 63 clickable thumbnails & embedded YouTube videos of the show )

Like I did last year, I'm saving webcam images (from Kat Kam & Numinous Numeriques) and posting YouTube videos of the 4 day competition. :D

The first night, July 22nd, was Canada with their "No Place Like Home" Theme.



( 56 clickable thumbnails & embedded YouTube videos of the show )

As promised, here's the best of the photos I took while I was outside videotaping the neighborhood fireworks.

( 25 photos of my evening... )

As I prepare for tonight's 4th of July fireworks, I thought I'd re-post my video from last year's "show". I edited this together from an 1hr. & 30 minutes of raw footage of the fireworks set off by the people one street to the north of us.

I recommend hitting the HQ button after you click play to get the best clarity. :)