On Chinese New Year’s Eve, I was fortunate to be invited to stay at the home of a Chinese friend of mine in Eastern Beijing. In preparation for the holiday, his family had bought a veritable arsenal of fireworks, which we all proceeded to set alight with little regard for personal safety. I shot two videos, which nicely capture the feeling of the evening.
The first shows another friend dropping a rather large explosive the wrong way down the firing tube. Listen for the “Aiyo!” shortly after the first explosion, an exclamation filled with the certainty of impending disaster.
Video 1 (11.5MB MPEG)
The second was taken several hours later, at one minute before midnight, when the whole city seemed to be exploding.
Video 2 (15.4MB MPEG)
The videos are large, but I have been unable to satisfactorily compress them. If there is enough demand, I will try again.
Related photos at Imagethief.
Update: There is not enough demand.
There you go. Looks like Baghdad under attack, especially at the end of the second video. Good stuff.
Glad you enjoyed them. I used my camera’s “infrared” mode to shoot, which explains the graininess and lack of colour — fortunately, I think it adds to the Baghdad effect. Unfortunately, the video of a multiple-stage rocket blaster falling over and shooting into the surrounding buildings didn’t turn out since we were all too busy running for cover.