Fireworks From Old Montreal

Those of you who have been following me here should be well aware by now that I really like photographing fireworks displays.  Despite my hatred of the Summer heat, I'm still out there when the temperature hits the 40's with humidity factored in and now I can say that I've hit the other end of the thermometer as well.  This past Saturday, after the windchill was factored in , the temperature was a rather crisp -41 Celsius.  My Lovely Assistant sat this one out, and my parents thought that I might have been a little crazy, but I wasn't going to let a little cold get in the way of my fun.  This was the final show of the annual Fire On Ice display from the Old Port of Montreal and sponsored by the Natrel dairy company.  Milk and fireworks, sounds like a winning mix to me. I went back to my spot on the banks of the Saint-Lawrence River from earlier in December.  There was still a brisk wind, but it wasn't as strong as it had been the previous time.  I had also since replaced my shutter trigger so there was much less of an issue concerning camera shake this time around.  Which is a good thing because I really liked the designs in the sky that this show produced.  I tried some different exposure times and also tried opening the shutter at different time during the explosions to create shorter and also longer light streaks in the sky.  As an added bonus, the cold air created a nice layer of ice fog over the river which you can see in several of the photographs.  I did have one surprise waiting for me...I actually wasn't the only one out there!  There was another brave soul out there taking some photographs of the show and we shared a chuckle over the extremes that we were going through in order to grab a few photographs.  Speaking of which, the first photograph was taken at f/16, 13sec, ISO 100 at 32mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/16, 8sec, ISO 100 at 32mm.  The third and fourth photographs were taken at f/16, 10sec, ISO 100 at 32mm.  Here are several more photographs that I took of the show.

f/16, 13sec, ISO 100 at 32mm

f/16, 8sec, ISO 100 at 32mm

f/16, 8sec, ISO 100 at 32mm

f/16, 8sec, ISO 100 at 32mm

f/16, 20sec, ISO 100 at 32mm

f/16, 10sec, ISO 100 at 32mm

f/16, 6sec, ISO 100 at 32mm

That was a pretty large selection, but I wanted to make the most out of my time in weather so cold that, as the late, great George Balcan would have said, was cold enough to freeze the nuts off of the Victoria Bridge.  Don't worry Mom, I was wearing boots and a scarf.