The website is almost ready, the main layout is finally done, I just still have few pictures to add in the different galleries and albums but it I will do them later when I will have more free time, I still have lots of pictures to post-process and videos to edit.

This year I went to spend my summer holidays in the center of France.

I will start with night pictures.
If you don’t know it, 14th of July is the French National day, also called the Bastille Day (Fête nationale in French). Every year the anniversary of the French Revolution, which was on the 14th of July 1789, is commemorated. And to do that, every city and town organises fireworks, plus the traditional big parade on the Champs Élysées Avenue in Paris broadcasted on TV channels.
In the past, even small villages had their fireworks but year after year people have abandoned them preferring to go to see the bigger ones shot in bigger towns. Before it was also more festive, with live music, dancing, drinks and food stalls until late in the night. All of that has gone, now people come to watch the fireworks and then go, except in few big cities which are still organising a free concert.

I was in the city of Voves, renamed “Les Village Vovéens” since the 1st of January 2016, a small town in the Eure-et-Loire department with a population of about 4,000 people.

Now let’s talk about pictures!
To shoot fireworks I always use my tripod, set my camera to manual mode (M) and use a wired remote control. For the settings, I set my lens to manual focus and adjusted it to infinity (∞), the shutter speed sets to “bulb”, f/8 and ISO 640 to 800. I often readjust the f-stop and the ISO depending of the fireworks and of the result I want to obtain.
The most difficult part was to find a good place to settle but this firework was shot in front of a big pond surrounded by lots of trees. I found that the best place would be just in front, at the edge of the water, that’s why I used my Sigma 10mm f/2.8 Fisheye lens. I didn’t know how big will be this firework and how high will go the rockets, that’s why I wanted to be wide.

I also had my GoPro Hero4 camera installed on another tripod. This camera is not made for night shooting but I’ve never used it in this condition and I wanted to see how it will look like.
Skip the long intro, the fireworks start at 3:00.

Here are other fireworks pictures shot in France and in Finland. Feel free to share this post 😉