169/365 Light up the skies over Indianapolis

On the Saturday night of Labor Day weekend, the skies over downtown Indianapolis light up in one of my favorite events of the year: Sky Concert.

Sky Concert features the most spectacular fireworks in Indiana, set perfectly to a soundtrack played on the radio. As you sit and watch, the music surrounds you from thousands of radios tuned to 97.1.

And this year, the combination of perfectly clear skies and the right gear in hand led me to get 363 photos between about 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., the majority of which came between 9:30 and 10:00.

I chose nine to feature here. Bear with me, I'm awfully excited.

We sat on the west side of the White River, a perfect location for sunset photos of downtown Indianapolis.

It won't be long and it will be impossible to get this photo -- the RCA Dome (former home of the Colts) and the newly completed Lucas Oil Stadium (fancy shmancy new home of the Colts). Demolition of the RCA Dome has already begun.

And here we have beautiful downtown Indianapolis at sunset:

And the same downtown, 30-60 minutes later, with the lights reflecting off the White River:

Just one final shot of the nighttime downtown before the show begins.

Fireworks began promptly at 9:30. One of the first themes focused on celebrating our own Indianapolis Colts, who won the Super Bowl in 2007 and who will host the Super Bowl in 2012. So of course you have to have blue and white fireworks.

There is always a generous helping of red, white and blue.


I first saw these shaped fireworks when they used "My Heart Will Go On" as a song in the show's soundtrack -- appropriate, don't you think?

My favorites are the HUGE white and gold ones that explode and slowly trail back to earth.

And the grand finale is always an unbelievable string of nonstop firepower. I read that 5,000 shells are used in the show, and I'm betting that at least 2,500 of those are used in the grand finale alone.
This is the first time I've attempted to photograph fireworks. I'll definitely do it again!

Camera: Canon 40D between 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. under clear skies.
1st photo: 1/125s, f/5.6 at ISO 400
2nd photo: 1/125s, f/5.6 at ISO 250
3rd photo: 0.6s, f/8 at ISO 640
4th photo: 1.3s, f/8 at ISO 400

5th photo: 3s, f/8 at ISO 640
6th, 7th, 8th photos: 0.6s, f/5.6 at ISO 640
9th photo: 25s, f/5.6 at ISO 100