4th of July is a busy time in Lake Tahoe and the town was totally packed this year. Walking by Lakeview commons I noticed that practically all of the good lakefront seating to watch the fireworks was already taken despite the fact that there was rain in the forecast.
Despite the fact that the parade ran almost half the length of town from Rufus Allen Boulevard all the way to the Y, there was a considerable crowd of tourists lining highway 50 to watch the parade pass Lakeview Commons and El Dorado beach.
Backstage at the Park and Rec center I caught up with former mayor of South Lake Tahoe Tom Davis. "Here we are on July 4th, 2015. I hope the weather is going to cooperate today. This is our nation's birthday and I am very proud to be in the parade along with all of our community. This is a great community event every year."
I spoke with +JoAnn Conner of Golden Bear Events, organizer of the parade. "This is the 4th annual South Lake Tahoe 4th of July parade assembling by the parks and recreation and we're going to proceed down Highway 50. We have as our grand marshal John Felis, a US Marine Corps veteran of World War II. We have every branch of the services represented here, Air Force, Marines, Army, Coast Guard and Navy and we also have veterans of everything from WWII to the Korean war to Vietnam all the way up to Afghanistan and Iraq. They're all here as well as a lot of businesses and vintage vehicles that are out here supporting this parade.
Lake Tahoe drew over 100,000 spectators to our 4th of July celebrations around the lake, but thanks to my photography buddy +John Cocores I was able to photograph and film the display from a private beach in the exclusive Tahoe Meadows development as an invited guest.
+Tahoe South's Fireworks display "Lights on the Lake" is famously synchronized to music, usually stuff I couldn't possibly licence. This year they decided to feature local artist +Jesse Kalin so I actually got to use a piece of music that was really featured in the show. (I don't know if this is where it was, I didn't have a radio with me when I was filming; but this is where I imagine I would put it if I was designing the fireworks display.) You can buy all of Jesse's music at his website JesseKalin.com.
4th of July
is coming up and everybody's been asking me: "How do you photograph fireworks?"
Equipment
Well, first of all, you have to make sure that your camera is capable of photographing fireworks. You guys know me, you know
that I take most all of my photography with my camera phone, but, let me tell you, a camera phone is not sufficient to
photograph fireworks. To be able to photograph fireworks you don't necessarily need an expensive SLR like the one I have in the video, but you do
need a camera that has a good manual mode where you can set both the aperature and the shutter together.
Now, to be able to film fireworks effectively, you're going to need a tripod. Your first and most primary piece of equipment
is a tripod. You can get them for about $20 at Amazon, you can get nicer ones more expensively. You want to make sure that
your tipod is in a good position with a good view of where the fireworks are going to be. You want to be up against the rail
if you can be. Either that or be way in the back up a hill where you're going to be over top of people's heads.
You set up your tripod there and make sure your tripod is nice and level. Figure out where the fireworks are going to be shot
off from and point your camera that way. Like, in Tahoe we shoot off our fireworks from Nevada Beach so I'm pointint my camera
towards Nevada Beach. You square up a nice, level shot of where the fireworks are and zoom in so that the fireworks area is
framed nicely in your camera.
Camera Settings:
Now you want to set your camera to manual mode. Set your aperature to f8, set your ISO to 200, and then you want to be varying
your shutter speed as you take the pictures. Now, how long your shutter speed goes for is going to determine what your picture
looks like. If you do a shutter speed of half a second that's going to capture one, or maybe a couple of bursts of fireworks
in a nice clear single frame. If you extend your exposure to 1 second, 2 seconds, all the way up to 5 seconds (you may need to
stop down to a smaller aperature if you're filming for 5 seconds); you're going to get more and more bursts of fireworks in any
single frame.
So, if you're looking to get a bunch of fireworks like the climax of a fireworks display, go with a 3-5 second exposure with an
aperature of f10-14;
if you want to get a single firework or a couple of fireworks go with a half second exposure with an
aperature of f8.
Make sure that you either have a cable relase, or if you are doing it just with the camera's shutter button that you push your
camera button quickly and release it as quickly as you can because if your hand shakes while it's on the button you're going to
ruin whichever picture you're taking. Take lots of pictures over the course of the fireworks display. You can adjust your
zoom to zoom out to get a large shot, say if the fireworks are high; or you can zoom in to just a single firework and take a
quick exposure to get that single firework in the sky look.
Shooting Fireworks on Video
Now, if you're going to be filming video of fireworks, video can actually be a lot easier. Again, you need a good video camera
to be able to shoot fireworks effectively. Most any consumer HD camcorder will work. Set the camera either to fireworks mode
if it has a dedicated fireworks mode (check your camera manual) because if your camera has a dedicated fireworks mode that will
do all the settings for you. Otherwise have your camcorder on night mode on a tripod and just set up your camcorder to look at
the fireworks: set it, turn it on, run it for the whole fireworks display, turn it off at the end. Just make sure that nobody
bumps your tripod, because, really, the best fireworks display on video is the one that doesn't have bumps in the middle that
you have to take out.
If you want stills from your video, you can take your video into an editing suite like Adobe Premiere and capture stills: Just import the video into Premiere, put the video on the timeline, play through to the frame you want, pause, and click on the little camera icon under the editing screen.
They won't look as smooth as stills from an SLR, but you will at least be able to get nice clear
stills, and because it's video you'll be able to choose what frame rather than have to put up with whatever your camera
happened to capture when you were pressing the button.
I went out to the 1st Annual 4th of July Parade in South Lake Tahoe (parade gallery) as well as Lights on the Lake fireworks later that night... This is what I saw.
I went out on my neighbor's porch to shoot the 4th of July fireworks in Tahoe and caught this amazing shot of the moon exploding. The original soundtrack is by Donnie Sanders from the funkywhitesoulman blog. It's from a piece he did in 2005, and he played every note himself.
(My video is FINALLY DONE! I shot from 11am to 6pm, edited from 6pm past midnight, rendered 'till 3am and passed out before the upload was finished... Please click through to YouTube and thumbs-up for all the hard work.)
clubs 4th: Altitude, Vex, 19 Kitchen/Bar (find a spot to point)
The Garage Boys 7/3
Improv @ Harvey's: Tommy Savitt and Erin Foley; intro for Horizon guy
Horizon (tonight): Stand up with entertainment director, Bethany Owen?
KRLT booth: Lights on the Lake, South Lake Tahoe’s spectacular Fourth of July fireworks event is a display of light among the best you’ll see on Independence Day.
The show begins at approx. 9:45 p.m.. Be sure to arrive early as the area fills up with spectators hours earlier.
Tune into KRLT-FM 93.9 or KOWL-AM 1490 to listen to a synchronized musical broadcast.
Heavenly Village: 4th of July skiing (Squaw, Alpine Meadows, and Kirkwood are open with fresh snow above 7500ft that fell the 29th),
Squaw Valley has a festival with live music every day and a fine arts and crafts festival going all 4th of July weekend with a concert by
"Big Head Todd and the Monsters" and a fireworks show on 7/3
Alpine Meadows will have live music every day with
Tahoe-Bykal Fuynbdraiser at the top of the heavenly tram on 7/1 $60
Ski Run / Marina: Tahoe Queen, Riva Grill, fireworks from ski run
El Dorado Beach: Beach/boat launch closures, road construction report, campground, camping tips, banners
CalTrans and NDOT have stopped road work from July 1 through July 5th: all lanes at Echo Summit and from Trout creek to Ski Run will be open. Construction continues at Lakeview Commons and El Dorado beach will be closed. The El Dorado and Douglas county sherrifs will be holding DUI checkpoints in the basin ALL weekend, not just 4th of July so remember that though it's never a good idea to drink and drive, it's an especially bad idea to drink and drive up here on a holiday weekend because you WILL get caught.
Whisky Dicks: "Pukey's American Throwdown" featuring:
Dernnis Johnson and the Mississippi Ramblers,
The Cowbelleros, and the Drift Alley Lobos ($8 door 7/3),
American Legion crafts fair (footage?)
Fire Station / Smoky Bear: Private fireworks prohibited, fire safety rules: No fireworks, Campfires in approved grills only,
-- Just because the sign says "LOW" fire danger dosn't mean you can ignore fire safety. See http://www.livingwithfire.info/Tahoe/ for more information.
Tallac Historic Site: Valhalla arts/jazz festival events, what's going on @ Camp Richardson, fireworks from Kiva,
dog friendly places for the 4th, "Life and History of the Washoe Rribe" @ Camp Richardson 7/2-3
VALLHALLA:
Carolyn Dolyn and Big Red (Texas Blues)@ boathouse theatre 7/1
Summer Jazz in the park 7/3 : Sam Rudin "Boogie, Blues, & Jazz"
north shore events: Kings Beach 7/3 fireworks, Tahoe City Commons Beach concert / fireworks, incline village red white and blue 4th (10AM Saturday 7/2 parade down Hwy 28 in Incline village, helecopter rescue demonstration, 1PM; Shakespeare festival benefit breakfast on Sunday 7/3 ), etc... South shore beach with view of the north shore maybe?)
