The "bombs" burst in air over downtown Portland July 4, 2010. Launched from a barge on the Willamette River, the display was billed as the largest in Oregon. (Photo by Matthew Ginn © 2010)

For the Fourth of July we wanted to give my parents a good view of the fireworks going off all around the city. Perrie sourced an excellent, top-secret, limited-access location with a prime view of the downtown fireworks and a good field of vision to see many of the other shows and private displays in the area. (If you know Portland well you can probably figure out where we were, but I’m not going to spill the beans.) In any case, it was a fantastic view and made for some nice pictures.

Ready now? All together:

“Oooooo … Aaaaaaah … Ohhhhhh!”

For the techies out there, these were all shot with a 50mm lens (some are cropped), ISO100, f/8 – 11, and 2 – 3 second exposures. I braced the camera against a steady surface because I didn’t bring a tripod.

I can’t decide which I like best. Which is your favourite?