Need soem assistance with Taiwanese festivals: Dark and explosive

[Ganoderma]

the last 6 years i have been trying to figure out how to capture teh essence of the temple festivals here. things are far more interesting at night and the contrast is far more surreal. so this is when i try to do most.

its hard to explain how it works without actually being here.

in basic terms the environment is like so:

streets are narrow and buildings are often around 6 stories high.

the streets down the center are parade style with much dancing, carts, god possession and most dramatic massive amounts of fireworks/firecrackers. the sides are lined with TONS of people pushing to get a better view until fireworks fly off and it gets hectic with people trying to back off.

its night but still very well lit, heavy in red/yellow colour.


i am no pro, by far, but i cannot get a grip of this. with a pile of a couple million firecrackers going off at once (which by the way does make you deaf for a good hour afterwards) it is very bright. but there is a hellish fire that errupts into the air in very black smoke, i cannot capture this as its very dark everywhere and very bright where the explosions are. and due to the speed of this sort of thing a panorama is out of the question, as is image stacking. nothing sits still for long, but its all slower paced than say sports photography..

I am adding photos not for CC or necesarily comments of the pictures themselve, but more to give you an idea of the surroundings in which i am trying so hard to capture. actually most of these pics are abotu 4-6 years old with a P&S an di was not so into photography at that point.