Milwaukee Skyline X Fireworks

Milwaukee Skyline X Fireworks by Ryan Castre , on Flickr


Adventured out to Milwaukee last weekend and got a few night shots. Got lucky with some fireworks also. CC welcome

I like the blue. I'm curious, however, as to why photographers feel the need to drag/blur the reflections in the water? Curious as to your thought process on that count.

I think that must be a preference thing.  Personally I like seeing the reflections, it has more interesting depth to the image. Just my 2 cents. 

Good job!

When you shoot long exposure and the water is moving it will give you the slow motion blur effect, this also blurs the reflection of the lights and buildings.

ryancastre wrote: When you shoot long exposure and the water is moving it will give you the slow motion blur effect, this also blurs the reflection of the lights and buildings.

I understand that.

However, the firework lasted only a few seconds, and was not constant. It's reflection in the water should be pretty precise, yet it is not. You've done some processing on the reflection. The lights from the buildings, geometrically speaking, are casting impossibly long reflections. You've done some processing. It's unreasonable to imply that this is just a simple long exposure, because as far as I can tell it's not. The water appears to have been manipulated. If an SOOC shows that I am mistaken, that would be very educational to me, as well.

I was simply asking about your mindset and motivation to do so. Granted, I'm probably too much of an engineer to ignore the physical impossibilities that I perceive in the image.

It doesn't look like the water has been manipulated to me but I could be wrong. Looks pretty normal and comparable to results I've gotten in the past.

Shadowfixer1 wrote: It doesn't look like the water has been manipulated to me but I could be wrong. Looks pretty normal and comparable to results I've gotten in the past.

Well, I'd like to be proven wrong. It would be educational. Unfortunately, there's nothing around here comparable (water-wise) so I can't go experiment myself.

Nope, the firework going off and the reflection in the water IMO balances this shot off perfectly. 

Beautiful for sure!

garyrhook wrote:

Shadowfixer1 wrote: It doesn't look like the water has been manipulated to me but I could be wrong. Looks pretty normal and comparable to results I've gotten in the past.

Well, I'd like to be proven wrong. It would be educational. Unfortunately, there's nothing around here comparable (water-wise) so I can't go experiment myself.

This may not be a good image but it shows the reflections being dragged out as you say, but there was no manipulation of the water.

garyrhook wrote:

ryancastre wrote: When you shoot long exposure and the water is moving it will give you the slow motion blur effect, this also blurs the reflection of the lights and buildings.

I understand that.

However, the firework lasted only a few seconds, and was not constant. It's reflection in the water should be pretty precise, yet it is not. You've done some processing on the reflection. The lights from the buildings, geometrically speaking, are casting impossibly long reflections. You've done some processing. It's unreasonable to imply that this is just a simple long exposure, because as far as I can tell it's not. The water appears to have been manipulated. If an SOOC shows that I am mistaken, that would be very educational to me, as well.

I was simply asking about your mindset and motivation to do so. Granted, I'm probably too much of an engineer to ignore the physical impossibilities that I perceive in the image.

There is no manipulation to the water at all. I shot a pano of the skyline 6 shots then various firework images. I stitched the pano together then blended my firework image using layer blend modes and added a mask to remove a few pieces that were aligning strange because I moved my camera then ended color corrections and touch ups. Each of the shots were about 45sec-1 minute exposures.

I hope this helps understand my process behind the image and that my initial on camera results provided the blurry reflections which I had liked.

Awesome; thank you very much. I am happy to be proven incorrect. There are some things here I don't have straight in my head, and thus an opportunity to learn. I appreciate your taking the time to illustrate!

And good job on the pano creation. 

No problem sometimes shots don't make sense until you can actually attempt them yourself either. 

Thanks for the all the comments so far!

Love this shot.  If you don't mind me asking, how long of an exposure was this shot?