This July 4th I decided to go to New Jersey to shoot pictures of the fireworks show that Macy’s puts on in the Hudson river. I know of a good spot in Hoboken that I scoped out a few years ago when my friends “The Dollyrots” played at Maxwell’s.

I got to their show way too early and decided to walk around and see if there was a nice view of NYC from the water which was nearby. Sure enough there was a great view from this little park near the shore. That day I only had my cell phone camera and caught a cool picture of a rainbow. I decided right there and then that I would be back someday with a real camera.

Since there is fireworks in the Hudson river this year, it would be a good excuse to take pictures of them and get the Empire State building in the background.

I took the train into lower Manhattan and caught the Path train over to Jersey. Found a nice spot to have a quick bite then it was off to find an empty space to set up the tripod. It was a good walk up to the place I had in mind so I checked out the area by the station.

Found a nice place and set up but after I watched the fireworks barges go past me I knew I had to move north. I ended up across the Hudson river from the Empire State Building. This wasn’t exactly north enough but there was plenty of room and some nice people around.

In less then 15 minutes I was set up and took some shots of Manhattan for future use. Took some shots of the many boats in the harbor and then it became a waiting game. Below is some of the shots.

Macy's July 4th Hudson River Fireworks

Fireworks in Hudson River

Fireworks over the Hudson River

I will be adding more over the next few days so remember to come back again. I made this post to show the nice people around me when I took the shots.

Last night we were sitting around and decided to walk down the block and see if we could see the tribute lights even though we were far away out in queens. I was quite surprised at how clear the night was and we took a few pictures.

After we went home and looked at the pictures on the computer we decided it was a good idea to take the train towards the city and get some close up pictures so we headed down to the Brooklyn promenade. We got on the train around 10pm and there was a nice quiet subway car until we got to Brooklyn and the subway became a place of screaming babies but that didn’t stop us from our mission. We got off at Jay Street and walked towards the promenade. These pictures have not been photo shopped I was just playing with settings. I could have used a tripod and that will be taken care of next year.

It was very difficult to see what I was taking in the live view and the pictures could have been steadier. I used the railing along the promenade as my tripod.

This next picture I left the shutter open a little longer and got some cool effects from the cars below on the Brooklyn Queens expressway.

This last picture I used the big cement block that is at the end of the Promenade. I have used this before to take shots since it is right across from the South Street Seaport.

After taking pictures from the promenade we went down to Brooklyn Bridge park but it was 1 am and they were closing the park. Next year we will head to Brooklyn Bridge park first and then up to the promenade after the park closes.