Sydney Harbour New Year’s Eve Fireworks Photos

January 5, 2015August 6, 2015 Matt Edwards 1973 Views 2 Comments Fireworks, New Year's Eve, Photography

Despite living in Sydney most my life, I’d never really seen the famed Sydney Harbour New Year’s Eve fireworks display properly. We went to a fun waterfront party in Point Piper in 2010, and I packed my tripod and camera with great anticipation, only for smoke to block all but the first couple of minutes. The thought of lining up with the schmucks at daybreak (or even the day before) for another harbourside opportunity filled us with dread, and so this was a dream put on hold for a while. Until this year, when we paid big bickies to secure an on-harbour viewpoint. It was worth it! Or at least I want to keep telling myself that- with the money spent I could have flown both of us from Europe to the USA or from Sydney to some idyllic South Pacific nation…

Anyway- I got my photos and I’m quite excited about them. Though they are slightly different from your average fireworks photos. When shooting fireworks, if you’re lucky with your angles and the smoke is blowing away from you, then with some long exposure times you’ll lose the smoke and hopefully gain a bunch of fireworks bursts with some nice long light trails. But we were on a floating platform, so a long exposure was not possible, nor was using a tripod, and I had to make do with a high ISO (though I managed to keep it under 5000). Because of this, these photos show a lot more detail in the smoke and explosion than you might usually see in regular fireworks photographs. We were also really close to one of the fireworks barges in the harbour which enhanced this effect. If you want to know my settings or view a photo in large size just click on it. So without further ado…

Sydney Habour on New Year's Eve 2015 with acrobat plane — We arrived in the afternoon and grabbed a good position. It was rather nice watching the sun go down and we were entertained by several acrobatic planes. They’d shoot vertically up in the air, up up up, until they stalled, tumbling end over end until the pilot pointed the nose downward and recovered. Thrilling to watch!

Sydney Harbour New Year's Eve 2015 Fireworks — The scene is set for the first fireworks display at 9pm.

Would love to know your favourite. Any other tips for good vantage points? Have you seen a fireworks display elsewhere which might rival that of Sydney’s? I’d love to know so that I might plan a trip. Hope you enjoyed!