DC 4th of July Photos - Washington DC Fourth of July

The weather this year definitely made me nervous! But, I was still determined and excited to photograph the DC Fourth of July Fireworks! So for this year I really wanted to just focus on the Washington Monument with the fireworks behind it. I wasn’t sure how big the fireworks would look behind it so I found a nice spot that was a little off center. Fingers crossed that this was a good location.

It turned out that this was a great location because had I been directly in line behind the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial I’m pretty sure I would’ve had to run to another location. Thankfully everything worked out amazingly! I was getting very nervous as some kids and young adults were throwing the football right in front of my camera. One lady, unfortunately, got hit in the face with their football and still they kept throwing it. I’m surprised she didn’t say or do something about it. Not a great idea to throw the football when there’s a +100k people sitting on the National Mall waiting to watch the fireworks…black eye free.

I used my Nikon Z 9 camera with my NIKKOR Z 24mm f/1.8 S lens on a ProMediaGear tripod. I don’t use this tripod very often as it is huge and bulky. But because of the amount of people I had to make sure it was tall enough to see over everyone in case someone decided to stand in front of me. I put my settings at ISO 32, f/13, 4 seconds. When the fireworks got really bright, I changed my aperture to f/16.

As I was getting setup I saw such a beautiful sunset and knew I had to capture it. And I’m so so so happy I did as it served as the main backdrop for all my firework photos. I hope you enjoy these photos!