LikeCelebration of Light
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
One of the great things about Vancouver is that there is always some great public events going on all round the city. Pick your time and place and something is probably honing on, more so during Summer.
Every year he city runs a fireworks competition. That’s right, a fireworks competition where sets run for about 20 minutes and happen 4 times over 2 weeks. Woo hoo! The competition is called The Celebration of Light, and is between 4 different countries where each country gets a whole set to itself and is judged for it’s quality by a couple of judging folk.
The other night we went to go see the first of the four, which was the USA. I only had my phone with me, so I’ll tell you about it then treat you to some average photos and maybe a video if you’re lucky.
The USA show was actually pretty cool. They tried to get real artsy and really get it into sync with the music, which were some older well known American tunes, some slowish with a swing feel, and some getting going a little.
The competitors get a massive barge which is anchored out in English Bay, just off First Beach. Folks will start setting up camp all around the edges of the bay at 4 or 5pm, even though the fireworks don’t actually start till after sunset which is after 9pm at the moment. Of course we’re a little more casual and have worked out that you can still get great spots on the beach if you ride in around about sunset. Also that means you get to ride out dodging pedestrians afterwards, which is always fun 
Anyway, so the US team made great use of the barge including firing floating fireworks into the water at one stage, and also had a few very impressive moments in the sky. I’m always a huge believer that they could halve the overall time spent shooting fireworks and just cram them all into the first ten minutes. That would be a very impressive show! The US was trying to be stylish though, so when they had a slow swing style song playing they got into the swirly, slow fireworks. A loud cheer from the crowd went up when they shot off some amazing fireworks that lifted off like real slow comets then descended again, then ascended and did that a few more times. It was pretty damn impressive.
The next ones are Spain on this Saturday (24th July), then Mexico on the following Wednesday (28th July), then China on the Saturday (31 July). Make sure you get down there!
Here’s a couple of pics… actually, nah, they’re a bit trash. Just picture a couple of fantastic shots with the faintest orange red glow of sunset in the background, hundreds of boats out on the bay with fairy lights on, planes circling above, and fireworks captured perfectly in an almost 3 dimensional photograph over about 10 seconds as I held the lense open with my bare hands. It’s amazing what you can do with an iPhone, isn’t it?!
Here’s a video instead, for your viewing pleasure. It’s not quite as good as the picture I described above, but it’s the finale of the US show, which was pretty amazing!
and is well and truly up by the time I get to work. Now that we’re past the solstice the days are getting longer and it’s much better for the soul. Here’s a brief happy snap from Oak St Bridge, which is near my work:
