Beijing Olympics – Opening Ceremony Fireworks

Beijing, 8th August, 2008 (or 8/8/8).
It’s an auspicious day, date and time in Beijing / China’s History.
We decided not to stay indoors and watch it on TV (The prospect of
doing this with only Chinese commentary was not overly exciting) and
headed out into the fray that is Beijing.

With Security unprecedented in Beijing, we encountered almost deserted
streets all the way to the Northern 4th Ring Road. There is a huge
police and security presence, but it’s not suffocating away from the
actual arenas. We quickly got a taxi, and after some short convincing,
got him to take us where we wanted to go.

Once at the ring road there was no choice but to walk. It was
completely locked off, with people emptying out of the the buses and
cars to get a look at the Fireworks. The 4th Ring Road is a eight lane
expressway that’s usually about as busy as any road in the world gets,
24×7. Really weird to see it stopped, the other side of the road
empty.

We had with us my camera / tripod combination (Canon 1Ds MkIII, Gitzo
1348, a RRS Ballhead, and a 16-35/2.8 / 70-200/2.8 lens setup.)  and a
JVC Video camera. The latter was of little use, although we got some
nice footage of the final burst of Fireworks.

There were quite a few cameras / photographers there, but not in the
numbers you’d see in Thailand or in the West. It is an emerging
market, after all, and the monied people are inside the stadium, not
slumming it outside with the likes of us!! Camera phones and “point &
shoot” cameras are virtually useless for this type of photography
unless you know how to set them up. Also a tripod is mandatory. Hand
held is wasting your time.

I used F16 and Bulb mode for the captures. This gave me total creative
freedom based on what happened in front of me. I use a remote shutter
release (hand held) and did exposures from 1 second to 6 seconds.
Based on some of the images I saw from those around me (who sought
advice, in that pidgin, hand gesture way we often communicate here),
there was not a lot of experience in capturing these types of images.
It is easy, but you need to use a suitable technique.

The people around us were generally friendly and only once did we have
to ask someone to move who deliverately tried to take our view of
proceedings.

I like to lt the images speak for themselves.

The black balls, or spheres in the images are “Beijing 2008″ balloons
set up around the perimeter….. In the cheap seats, we had to take
the best we could.

Rob, from the 4th Ring Road, Beijing ….