A Scenic World

I really didn’t like the photo I posted for my self-portrait photo today. So while I was at work, I had an idea. It would involve buying more sparklers, because Mike and I went through all his stash the night before, but it was worth the $1 I’d have to spend.So tonight I got off work, bought my sparklers, and headed home to change. I lugged my tripod, my K200D with the 31mm lens attached, my remote, a lighter, and the sparklers outside. I set up the shot I wanted and made sure the focus was locked in the right position (Pentax AF isn’t exactly known for being perfect in the dark).

Then I realized that my idea wasn’t going to work. In fact, there was a very good chance I was going to end up setting my house on fire.

Time for Plan B! Except there wasn’t a Plan B. So I set up my tripod so it faced a different direction, lit a sparkler, and stood in one place. Yeah, very original.

I went through all 12 of the sparklers in the box and prepared to pack everything up.

But wait!

There was one sparkler left! The box had only advertised a dozen, but there it was: Sparkler #13!

I lit it, waited for the magic to begin, and changed things up. I danced. I twirled. And I pressed the remote release.

When a holiday comes around, it only means one thing for me: work.

Last night, though, Mike Autry decided to spice up our July 4th with root beer floats, chicken wings, and a few packs of sparklers.

After we’d both gotten off work (roughly 10:30pm), we headed out to my yard with our cameras and tripods to see what we could get. A few of my distant neighbors had apparently gotten something larger than sparklers, but they only shot about one firework (can it be used in the singular every five minutes). This was the best shot I got:

Now, on to the sparklers. I couldn’t figure out a good way to incorporate them into an interesting photo. Mike hit upon a very clever application, but I couldn’t steal his idea and my own brain was just mush. This is the best I got, which isn’t much:

I thought about using that for my daily shot, but when I went to my porch this morning, I saw we’d forgotten to throw away one used sparkler. I liked how the foil curled, so I took it inside and took this instead:

Ah, well. There’s always next year.

In flash-related news, I feel I made a breakthrough today when I set the flash to “Manual” and could control the output by determining the power of the flash (i.e. 1/1 for full power, 1/4 for less, 1/64 for WAY less). I’m going to play around more when I have a chance and will hopefully get something useful. I still really need to get an off-camera flash shoe…