05/14/2026
Hey y’all! If you haven’t already seen the post on my personal page, I have been selected as a finalist in Zambelli Fireworks Thunder Over Louisville fireworks photography contest.
If you’d be willing to click on the post I’m sharing, and in the comments comment “1”, my image is actually the first image of the four posted, and your comment would count as a vote. That’s it, easy peasy.
I’d love to share my story behind this image though, if you’d care to continue reading.
Thunder Over Louisville is an annual festival to kick off the Kentucky Derby Festival. Last year’s show was cancelled due to major flooding.
Earlier this year, I first found out about the festival and wanted to photograph the Air Show and Fireworks that are part of the events and my husband booked us a trip to go for my birthday.
The day of the fireworks and airshow was a rainy day, with dropping temps. And just like my husband and I, many of the people you see in the crowd, camped out during the day to save their spot for the fireworks show that evening.
The people you see in that image, wouldn’t have been able to stand there last year as that is the area that was totally under water. If you zoom in, even though this is a slow shutter image which would pick up movement as a slight blur, you can make out images of families watching from their weather pods, in their rain jackets, videoing and taking photos on their phones, couples hugging, and everyone taking in the beauty of the fireworks in front of them, pretty crisply because, everyone was just taking it all in and enjoying it.
Additionally, because it was a rainy day and overcast evening, I chose not to oversaturate the colors when I edited the image so anyone looking at the image would see the fireworks similar to how we saw it in real time.
I hope you enjoy this image as much as I enjoy it and if you’d like to cast a vote for it, image 1, or any of the other three images, you can just click on the original post and comment your favorite there.
Thanks a bunch!
Fonnie 💜
