Spectacle of Lights
Enjoy a sensational moment from Seattle’s observation of the United States’ 239th birthday on July 4th. Seattle has never disappointed with its spectacle of lights each Independence Day. Apparently, it always ranks among the Top 5 cities in America with the best fireworks presentation. I believe it.
This year, I was on assignment for a client, and that meant getting to this location around 12 noon, a full 10.5 hours before the fireworks were to begin (a show, by the way, that’s only 20 minutes long).
I figured if I could survive 2.2 million people on the shores of Sydney Harbour for New Year’s balancing myself and my tripod on a row of bushes, I can handle a crowd in Seattle -- but a crowd is a crowd, regardless of the location. Irony of ironies, as much as I love gigantic cities, I don’t like crowds. You’d never know it, though, but I digress.
It was fun to photograph the festivities at Gas Works Park, the primary location of Seattle's holiday events. What was not fun was the sweltering 40ºC/100ºF heat as the audience increased from a few hundred at noon to several thousands by 10pm. Fortunately, I lathered myself with sunscreen lotion three times and took brief breaks to rehydrate.
Believe it or not, everywhere you see people in this photo is typically where a rolling knoll of green grass would be. Every 4th of July, one cannot see the grass of this park because it’s completely covered by humanity.
Nevertheless, the end result -- photographing the holiday’s main event -- was worth the smoldering. It’s always entertaining to hear the “Ooooohs!” and “Aaaaaahs!” from the audience in a rhythmic unison, similar to The Smurfs whenever they were in awe of what was in front of them.
What’s also interesting, as a personal observation, was that this unison of cheers often reminds me that as much as we discriminate against each other for ridiculous differences in appearance, character (and the list could go on for eons), the similarities of our behavior as a group are evident. For 20 minutes, there was nothing but mutual, fully engaged admiration for a light display.
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Spectacle of Lights
Enjoy a sensational moment from Seattle’s observation of the United States’ 239th birthday on July 4th. Seattle has never disappointed with its spectacle of lights each Independence Day. Apparently, it always ranks among the Top 5 cities in America with the best fireworks presentation. I believe it.
This year, I was on assignment for a client, and that meant getting to this location around 12 noon, a full 10.5 hours before the fireworks were to begin (a show, by the way, that’s only 20 minutes long).
I figured if I could survive 2.2 million people on the shores of Sydney Harbour for New Year’s balancing myself and my tripod on a row of bushes, I can handle a crowd in Seattle -- but a crowd is a crowd, regardless of the location. Irony of ironies, as much as I love gigantic cities, I don’t like crowds. You’d never know it, though, but I digress.
It was fun to photograph the festivities at Gas Works Park, the primary location of Seattle's holiday events. What was not fun was the sweltering 40ºC/100ºF heat as the audience increased from a few hundred at noon to several thousands by 10pm. Fortunately, I lathered myself with sunscreen lotion three times and took brief breaks to rehydrate.
Believe it or not, everywhere you see people in this photo is typically where a rolling knoll of green grass would be. Every 4th of July, one cannot see the grass of this park because it’s completely covered by humanity.
Nevertheless, the end result -- photographing the holiday’s main event -- was worth the smoldering. It’s always entertaining to hear the “Ooooohs!” and “Aaaaaahs!” from the audience in a rhythmic unison, similar to The Smurfs whenever they were in awe of what was in front of them.
What’s also interesting, as a personal observation, was that this unison of cheers often reminds me that as much as we discriminate against each other for ridiculous differences in appearance, character (and the list could go on for eons), the similarities of our behavior as a group are evident. For 20 minutes, there was nothing but mutual, fully engaged admiration for a light display.
TIA OFFICIAL WEBSITE / VUE ATYPIQUE / TIA TWITTER / TIA OFFICIAL BLOG / TIA INSTAGRAM