Evolving Photographer: Abstract and Realist Firework Photos: Independence Day

So I did get the D7100 in time to use on the Fourth of July here in the States. Is there a better day for photographers? Shiny things in a dark sky, coordinated light from buildings, celebrating crowds... it's not bad, not bad at all!

So, per my yearly tradition, I went down to the White House. A highly underrated Independence Day destination, if I do say so. usually there are a lot of differing protests going on, people just having fun, and the parade of tourists. This year was a little light on activity, but I still got some great shots.

I then ventured out into Virginia with my tripod to try something new with fireworks shots. After reading this on DIY Photography, I was inspired to see if I could make images like this. One cable release and some heavy experimentation, and I came up with a series of images that a friend described as "looking like they were taken underwater." I'll take that as a compliment of how odd everything looked - not how out of focus it was!

I also snapped some standard fireworks shots without altering the focus of the lens. In the end, I was pretty happy with the results. I started out using my 55-200mm lens, but simply couldn't ensure that I was getting each firework in view without constantly moving the tripod head. Since I didn't want to focus on that in addition to everything else, I took the majority of my shots with my 35mm lens and then post-processed them in Adobe Lightroom 4.4 for cropping purposes.