There's no doubt about it. On July 14th every year, Paris puts on one of the greatest fireworks displays on earth. Since it's not on New Year's Eve, most people have never seen it on the nightly news. I guess having it on July 14th limits the worldwide coverage it gets. This is my second gallery of 2015 Bastille Day Fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. See Part 1 for more 2015 Eiffel Tower fireworks photos.
This photograph was taken closer to the end of the show. You can tell from all the lights on the tower itself. They always wait until near the end to turn those lights on. There are thousands of bright lights all over it; so many that the tower looks like a white drawing of itself. If this were a film instead of a photo, you'd see they're actually flashing on and off really quickly, but opening the camera for several seconds makes it look like they're all on at once. So, this is something you could never see with the naked eye.
The air is on fire! You can see the fireworks shoot off of all parts of the tower; the top, the sides, the "second floor", everywhere. Somebody has to put all those fireworks up there and plan exactly which ones fire when. Pretty amazing.
The reflections in the Seine are nice in this one. This is why I wanted to try shooting from the banks of the river this year.
Golden finale! I like the way the spotlight on top of the Eiffel Tower is so visible as a white spike. That spotlight spins on top of the tower every night, not only on Bastille Day. It appears to spin, like a spotlight on a watchtower, but there are actually four spotlights, one on each corner near the top, not on the top. One turns off just as the next turns on. to create the illusion of a spinning light.
This one gives the fireworks a whole different look. In case you're thinking this was done in Photoshop, it wasn't. It's done as the photo is being taken over a few seconds. The variety of colors is great - it's got the whole spectrum, from violet to blue to green to yellow to orange to red. The soaring brown struts of the tower are actually visible in the dark center, if you look carefully.
