No matter what skill level you’re at, PetaPixel has educational guides to help you create vivid, masterful fireworks photographs. This how-to offers five creative fireworks photography techniques to elevate your shots beyond the basics, including a Grand Finale trick perfect for capturing unique, expressive images that stand out from the crowd.
Last year, we covered the fundamentals for leveling up your firework photographs from snapshots to professional images with “How to Photograph Fireworks Like a Pro”, featuring tips from photographer Will Chaney. This year, I am sharing the next set of tips, including my own creation, for a series of fireworks techniques to make your images stand out.
Once you’ve mastered the gear, settings, and foundational techniques for fireworks photography from the previous article, the real fun begins: experimenting with even more creative techniques that push your images beyond the expected. Fireworks offer a unique combination of light, motion, and unpredictability, perfect for photographic play. From painterly blurs to precisely layered finales, these advanced approaches can elevate your work and help you capture fireworks in ways that surprise and inspire.
What I love most is that by combining different techniques, you can create truly one-of-a-kind images, and even photographers shooting the same event can walk away with entirely different results.
Here are my top five creative techniques to try:
1. Defocused Fireworks: Turning Light into Abstract Art
Sometimes the sharpest photo isn’t the most compelling. One way to break the mold is to deliberately defocus your lens while photographing fireworks, transforming bright explosions into soft, swirling bursts of color. This technique emphasizes motion, mood, and form over detail, often resembling dreamlike brushstrokes across the sky.
Start by using manual focus and intentionally shift your focus ring out of sharpness — either before the burst or slowly during the exposure. A short exposure of two to four seconds works well, paired with a moderate aperture (around f/5.6–f/8) and low ISO (100–200) to maintain clean color. For added drama, try adjusting focus mid-burst: slowly turning the focus ring during a long exposure will create concentric or expanding shapes with rich, unexpected texture.
Sometimes I like to really play, going so far past blurry as to step from abstract to nonobjective, just capturing the light as bokeh.
2. Pull-Focus Fireworks: Dynamic Zoom with Manual Focus
A variation on the defocused technique, focus pulling adds a controlled shift in sharpness during the exposure. Unlike simply blurring the shot, this method creates layered textures and surreal transitions, from sharp center sparks to soft, glowing halos.
To try it, start at f/16, set your focus point manually, and begin slightly out of focus. As the firework explodes, smoothly adjust the ring toward sharpness (or vice versa) during a 3–6 second exposure. Use a tripod to stabilize the frame and emphasize the motion of focus rather than camera shake. Results vary depending on your timing and lens, but done well, this technique produces a sense of movement that makes each shot feel alive.
3. High-Speed Freeze: Capturing the Firework’s Perfect Moment
While most fireworks photography relies on long exposures, you can also experiment with short shutter speeds to freeze the exact instant of a firework’s burst. This technique highlights structure and texture, revealing the unique geometry of each explosion.
Shoot in manual mode with shutter speeds between 1/250 and 1/1000 sec, a wide aperture (f/2.8 to f/5.6), and ISO between 400 and 800 depending on ambient brightness. You’ll need to anticipate the burst and time your shutter carefully, rapid bursts or multi-explosions are especially photogenic. This is one of the few fireworks methods where autofocus might work well if you have a scene, such as illuminated buildings, to lock in on; however, pre-focusing manually on the general burst height is often more reliable.
4. Wide-Angle Storytelling: Contextualizing the Chaos
Creative fireworks photography isn’t only about what’s in the sky, it’s also about where the fireworks happen. Using a wide-angle lens to include foreground elements, such as crowds, buildings, or landscapes, adds depth and narrative to your images.
Rather than chasing a perfect explosion, frame your scene to tell a story. Shoot with an aperture around f/8 to f/11 to keep the foreground and fireworks sharp, and use longer exposures (2–8 seconds) to capture the full bloom. Reflections in water or silhouettes against the lit sky can create compelling visual contrasts. The best wide shots strike a balance between the human scale and the grandeur of the display.
5. The Grand Finale Technique: Layered Light Using Manual/Bulb Mode and Black Cardstock
For those looking to capture a grand finale that feels as intense and layered as it does in real life, this technique delivers. It’s a method I devised in the late 1990s, inspired by old-school darkroom dodging and burning, except instead of photo paper, you’re controlling light in real-time with a piece of black cardstock.
My favorite series using this technique was in 2013, capturing the Fourth of July fireworks over New York City with the iconic skyline as a backdrop. It’s an excellent method for showcasing both the grandeur of the fireworks finale and the surrounding landscape, and honestly its just super fun to see what the results will be.
Here’s how it works:
Start by setting your camera to Manual or Bulb mode, allowing you to control the shutter speed manually, and mount it securely on a tripod. Use an aperture of f/11 to f/16, ISO 100 to maintain detail without blowing out the highlights, and manual focus to infinity. Keep in mind that the finale will be brighter than the rest of the show, so it is best to slightly underexpose just in case. The shutter speed is going to depend on your gear, the scene, the ambient light, and how large your fireworks are. I aim for 30 seconds to a full minute exposure time, with a sweet spot of 45 seconds. To recap: f/16, ISO 100, 30-45 seconds, and tweak based on your scene’s needs.
A few aspects to note: Some areas of your image, just due to so many rapidly overlapping fireworks, especially if your composition shows the area where they are shot from, may be blown out, but I just enjoy the photographs and process to create it without fussing too much over being “perfect.” I suggest practicing the Grand Finale Technique a few times beforehand, earlier in the fireworks show, to become comfortable with the settings and timing, which will help minimize “blowout.” If you find that your images are still coming out too bright, try increasing your aperture or using a polarizing filter to reduce the light and bring out the colors even more.
Just as the finale starts (or while testing earlier in the show), hold the black cardstock in front of your lens to fully block the light without touching the lens, preventing any camera shake, and begin your exposure. Each time a firework explodes, briefly uncover the lens to expose the peak bloom of that burst, then cover it again using the piece of black cardstock. The black card acts like a shutter, blocking light without shaking the camera, allowing you to stack multiple explosions in one frame without overexposing the sky.
The timing is critical: uncover the lens just as a new burst blossoms in the sky and cover it as the firework’s light trails fade, ideally, you will have the lens exposed for fractions of a second at a time. Repeat this rhythmically and quickly throughout the finale. You’ll end up with a controlled, multi-layered image where each firework stands on its own, yet combines into a rich, dense composition, like a fireworks symphony frozen in a single frame.
This approach requires patience and practice, but the results are striking. Where long exposures often blur bursts into chaotic overexposed light, this technique allows each explosion to shine while preserving the complexity of the finale and the scenery. Depending on the length of your firework display’s Grand Finale, you may be able to create several images with this long exposure and black cardstock technique, I average two or three Grand Finale keepers from big shows.
Most of All, Have Fun
Fireworks photography offers much more than documentation, it’s a canvas for creative interpretation and a great opportunity to enjoy a more playful side of photography, especially at a time of celebration. Once you’ve nailed the technical details, have fun experimenting with focus, motion, layering, and perspective for truly original results. Whether you lean into dreamy abstractions or seek to choreograph the chaos of the Grand Finale, these creative techniques offer new ways to see and capture the vibrant spectacle of fireworks displays.
Image credits: Photographs by Kate Garibaldi
Source link
