Sumida River Fireworks Festival
Summer is the time of going to the beach, eating ice cream, and enjoying warm nights with extra daylight. In Japan, and many parts of the world, the middle of Summer is also marked with various firework displays. Tokyo’s Sumida River Fireworks Festival happens to be Japan’s largest, or most attended fireworks show, drawing close to a million spectators.
Normally as a photographer, my intention is to get as close to the action as I can. However, that would have meant a lot of difficulty to be packed in among so many people with a tripod, and it would have missed having Tokyo Skytree in the shots. Thus, I hiked for almost 2 full hours north along the river to find a viewing spot that looked back down to where I could get everything in view.
Fireworks are actually incredibly difficult to photograph since they are a moving subject that never appear exactly when, or how you expect them to. Every shot is a combination of luck, and immense planning. Having Skytree in the frame helped a lot, giving my camera something stable to hold focus and exposure with (even though the lights on Skytree were also shifting every few seconds!). The fireworks themselves may not have been the most spectacular that I’ve ever seen, but it was a fun night and I came away with a very iconic Tokyo set of images.
Photos taken with the Nikon Z9 and Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S lens