Japan Day Dusseldorf 2013 ( part2 ) : evening fireworks.

A shot of the market at Japan Day ( more than 60,000 visitors !) : extremely crowded and near impossible to get good pictures of the stalls, so I decided to skip this.

One  highlight of the Japan Day in Duesseldorf is always the fireworks display in the evening.
The theme this year was " Heart of Japan", promising Japanese motifs like cherry blossoms, Japanese characters and other Japanese motifs.

I set up my camera on the bridge across from the fireworks, more than half an hour in advance to get a good spot. It was cold and windy up on the bridge there.
View from the bridge : the Japanese market is on the left of the Rhine. In the distance you can see the television tower.
( for the best viewing of these photos : darken your room a bit or better yet : hook your laptop to a large display )

Several boating companies were offering 'firework viewing' ferry rides ( at a price ) , manoeuvring into place on the Rhine, offering their passengers a close and comfortable (and dry!) view of the fireworks ( including lots of good food and drinks ).

Just before the fireworks started , rain clouds moved in and it started to rain... I managed to keep my camera reasonably dry , but I did have to wipe the lens dry regularly. ( Next time I'll bring an umbrella ). That's why I ALWAYS have a UV filter on all my lenses. If I scratch the filter , it's just 65 Euro for a new filter, but scratch the lens and you're looking at a much more expensive replacement.


Because of the rain , the wind and the distance and because some explosions were quite small not every picture is as sharp as I'd like it to be, but for once I've broken my own rule of only posting perfectly sharp pictures, because I feel the colours were too lovely not to publish them.  I hope you enjoy the not so sharp ones anyway.



The opening of the display : fountains of sparks.

A lot of the fireworks featured Japanese flowers.

At this point , the size of the display became much larger : multiple very bright streamers and smaller colourful dashes.

Very big , very noisy !

One of the trademark fireworks of Duesseldorf : the "golden rain". They send up several fireworks at once to fill the sky with long golden streamers.

After the golden rain, lots of little colourful explosions.

and very big ones

A collection of flowers.

Japanese characters, but from this sideview , not possible to see which ones :)

Looks like palm trees.

The end of the evening : a massive display of very bright ( and loud) white explosions,

that completely lit up the river.

Next year I'll definitely come back to photograph this again and get more pictures..