4th of July 2014 Fireworks in Tahoe

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.

See all 20 images in my 4th of July 2014 still pictures gallery on Google+

New Year's Eve 2014 in Stateline

New Year's Eve crowd in front of Harrah's (Photo by +Joe V )

Every New Year's weekend the population of South Lake Tahoe temporarily triples to over 60,000.  With both #SnowGlobe2013 and Swat Soundscape and a full slate of parties on the schedule  in town that night and an unusually warm 24F low temperature turnout for the traditional Stateline celebration was exceptionally high.

I started the evening at Heavenly Village's 9PM "New York New Year's" celebration, which counts down to the new year in New York by sending a lighted gondola car from the top of the mountain to the last pole by midnight, when they set off a pretty spectacular 10 minute fireworks display



After finishing what locals call "Skim Milk New Year's" I went home and grabbed my buddy Joe, who had never been to a New Year's Eve in Lake Tahoe before and we set off on foot at 11:20 on a mission to get to California by midnight and make a video on the way.

We didn't quite make it to California, but we met a lot of interesting people along the way before they had to clear all the tourists out of the street with a snow plow.