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And so, another year has just whizzed past by. 2009 was a year in itself. The subprime fallout spilled over into 2009, the stock market collapsed, credit froze and everyone was a naysayer. Comparisons with the 1920's were inevitable and the man on the street were lamenting about the onset of the next depression.

March brought the bulls along and kicked the bears squarely in the nuts. Markets all over the world rebounded from their lows and those who were brave enough to invest were rewarded handsomely. We don't know if its a secular bull run or not but then again, that's a different post all together.

With so much happening in the span of 1 year, what better way than to see see the year off with a bang right? Since there are fireworks every year, I decided to catch the fireworks from the comforts of my home. No need to push and shove other revellers just to get a better view of the fireworks.

Then came the planning. A quick search on Google revealed that fireworks are difficult to capture owing to the long exposures needed. Thus, a tripod and a shutter release cable are necessary to eliminate camera shake. Shopping for a tripod wasn't easy. There were so many things to decide on, what type of head, which material to go for etc. In the end I just reused my trusty old Jessops tripod. :P
The remote shutter was pretty straightforward. Either get Canon's remote release (RM60) or a third party remote release (RM30).

With my pocket RM30 lighter, I set about scouting for the perfect spot. Admittedly when I got there there was a small crowd but finding a place high enough to place my tiny tripod proved to be a challenge. After searching for several minutes, I found an arch where I could place my camera on. Took a shot and was pretty pleased with myself for getting a pretty good spot.


The skyline from my 'vantage' point.

So with bated breath, I waited for the fireworks. With the crowd noisily counting down, I readied the remote release wondering if I would manage to capture any decent shots. The moment the count down hit zero, I stabbed at the shutter. Several seconds later there were faint explosions coming from the horizon but no fireworks! Everyone went WTF?! Another few more fireworks confirmed my worst nightmare, the spot I/we choose was rubbish. How rubbish? Check out the pictures below.



I knew that there would be buildings blocking the view but I really didn't expect the fireworks to explode just below the bridge. So yeah, all the preparation went down the drain. At least I didn't buy the tripod.

Seeing as there was no way the fireworks would go any higher, I packed up and left along with the crowd. The next half an hour was spent transferring the pictures over to my pc and then suddenly I heard another firework going off. Dropped everything I was doing and immediately grabbed my camera. Since I knew that these fireworks wouldn't last for long, I didn't bother setting up my tripod and snapped from my window.





As you can see, the results turned out to be pretty terrible due to the camera shake. But I suppose some is better than none. Oh well, better luck next year. =/