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Continue the EVENTS Thread of Photos
This fireworks photo goes back about five years. I went back to edit it again in 2023 with new Lightroom tools that helped me to highlight the fireworks burst. I made the surroundings black and white to help emphasize the color in the explosion.
The fireworks show is a very Memphis style public event. While people do spread a blanket out on the grass, downtown is still close to your car. The main feeling of togetherness that you fewel from the event is the bulge scrum of vehicles that leave following the show. I got to the show pretty early so my car was on the front row facing the river. This is the last row to leave.
The exit begins so slowly that you cannot help but think "why even try," but you watch some of those aggressively pushing their way out and actually make it out. I don't aggressively push, so I was sitting alone in my car in a huge, nearly stagnant column of vehicles.
The last visit to the downtown fireworks, I had my wooden deck on top of my civic and a 15 foot step ladder. The rack on top of my car could hold that Wagner ladder. I put one camera on a step mount up from the top of the ladder. That camera was shooting time lapse, but not for video for multiple fireworks burst shots.
I sat on the deck that stuck out over the back window of the Honda. To get up there you step on the bumper, then the trunk and then sit down on the bench. It was my way of protecting the rear window when I put the ladder on the roof rack but it also was a great deck that you could also sit on. I used it often. It was a great seat to watch a T-ball game or the bicycle races around town. The 1990 Honda Civic was the car for this roof addition because I don't see cars that have bumpers anymore or a trunk that you could stand On.
This photo came from my Sony 7R that I had as I sat on the back of my car. The camera on the ladder was using long exposures to get more light, and I don't recall any of those photos being any good. The thing that I like in this photo are the rays of light from the street lights. I was using a wide angle to get multiple explosions in the shot, and it also captured the lights in the background of some of the cityscape in the ambient light.
The sad story of my Honda was one night while I was at the Memphis Camera Club an Uber Eats driver smashed head-on and totaled it. The rack was not harmed, but the front drive axle was bent under.
I live on a corner and my Honda was parked in front of my home. An Uber Eats driver ran the stop sign and a second Uber Eats driver speeding down my street hit the first and careened into the front of my civic. The Uber Eats driver bounced off the front of my parked car and ended up on the steps to my house.
It was mostly cleaned up by the time I got home but I was but I noticed the shrapnel in the street as I turned the corner. Judy met me outside because she knew how much I love that car. She helped me deal with its loss.
I never call Uber eats.
- Tim Wheat
Photo by Tim Wheat.