Blowing up the Space Needle (New Year Fireworks)
Posted January 1st, 2008 in [hide]By tradition, we like to ring in the New Year with a fireworks show from the beloved Space Needle.
Living in Queen Anne, I hiked up to Kerry Park for the show. Near the top of the hill, and situated directly opposite both downtown, in the background, and the Space Needle; this is the one place in the city where the Needle looks like it could be standing next to other sky scrapers.
The Space Needle was built in 1962 for the World’s Fair; at 605 feet, it’s hardly the relative giant it once was. Contrast this against the Columbia Center / Bank of America Tower, the tallest building in the Northwest at just shy of a thousand feet.
Exposure times ranged from about 5 to 30 seconds. Some of the highlights have “blown out” or overexposed, especially surrounding the building’s stalk in the first image. Still the relative darkness of the city at midnight on New Year’s Eve allowed the shutter to remain open - at a moderate aperture - long enough to allow the fireworks’ trails to streak.
I like the 2nd one best as it has finer details in the blue tips of the fireworks.
How many people hang out in Seattle for NYE fireworks? There were over a million here in Sydney, Australia for the Harbour Bridge fireworks
Hopefully no one’s up there when the fireworks are set off :D.
The effects look really good, do they do that for other holidays as well (like fourth of July)?
We have a fireworks show for the Fourth of July, but it’s from Lake Union … maybe a mile and a half away. From Capitol Hill, a neighborhood I used to live in, the show still looks like it’s happening around the Needle, but from Kerry Park, it’s just about the opposite direction. Last summer I set up the camera with a great view of the skyline, waiting for the fireworks to start, and when they did, the lens couldn’t even see the fireworks.
Good question, Neerav. The last census - from 2000 - put Seattle at just over half a million people. That balloons significantly if you count the whole Puget Sound region, but most of the suburbs have their own fireworks show. Which I guess might be the very definition of urban sprawl…?
I think I like the middle photo best myself.
Sweet, man! How long did it take you to set up your shots?
Those photos are just stunning, Forrest! Fireworks can be so spectacular, and that really comes through in your photos.
Love it man, It’s been a while since I have seen your work. That must have been some show.