Bloomington, IN: Fourth of July Sparkler Photos

Hope you had a fun 4th of July weekend despite the chilly and rainy weather in south central Indiana.


We made the best of it with spending time with lots of friends and grilling out. Eric is the best and grilled for all of us in the rain (we have a new pop-up canopy, but you shouldn't put the canopy over the grill). All the fireworks shows near us this weekend were cancelled or postponed, which was a bummer, but I picked up some sparklers (and had some from last year) and we made our own fireworks fun. Here are some of my favorite photos from last night. Thanks everyone for coming over and hanging out with us yesterday for the holiday!

Some notes about the sparklers -- we had two different kinds, just the kinds you can find in the grocery store around here: a $2 pack of 5 small sparklers and a $5 pack of 7 large neon sparklers. The large ones are way, way better. At least a quarter of the small ones either didn't light or didn't stay lit, and they are not worth your money or time. They also don't burn for very long even if they burn their powder length. I will be stocking up on the large ones, which burn for quite a while, and we had no duds. They are easier to hold as well. The best pictures you see are from the large sparklers.

 Some notes on the photography -- I am continuing to learn about night photography and what my camera can do. There's a mix of "auto" mode (don't knock it on the new cameras - my camera gets really nice auto shots), live time, and live composite.

 
We discovered that Telesilla gets really excited with a sparkler.

Eric and Christine are the best at light writing (by a large margin).

Serge is visiting from France (we were proud of his new shirt) and enjoyed the sparkers almost as much as Telesilla.

Although he needs some practice at light writing :)

We tried to grab some photos of all of us (Telesilla, Serge, Pat, Christine, Eric, me) with the last of the small sparklers, but had a lot of duds so this was the best I could do (sorry guys!).

Eric and I were encouraged to use the last two large sparklers to write together...he did the LO and I did the VE. I need some practice...

...and to write our names together.

It was great to have everyone over again this year and glad we got a little break from the rain in the evening.

For those in town who want fireworks, the Fourwinds fireworks show was postponed to September 4th (Labor Day weekend) and the Ellettsville fireworks show was postponed to July 9th.