Floating Lantern Festival - 5/28/2012

I've never been to the floating Lantern festival but I have seen lots of beautiful pics from fellow photogs.  This year my friend wanted to go and offered me parking nearby so I decided to join the 40,000+ people at Ala Moana Park. I wasn't sure what lens to bring since I thought wide angle would get those cool closeup of the lanterns but then I thought long lens would allow me to stay on the shore although it would be really heavy to lug around.. decisions.. decisions..I ended up choosing the 70-200mm thinking there would be more stuff far away than up close.  For almost an hour, I saw nothing but crowd and the guy guarding the entrance to the beach access telling folks to move along and stay off the sidewalk. I saw a lot of people passing by cradling their lanterns with remembrances written about their loved ones.

For almost an hour, there was really nothing to shoot..but all of a sudden, in the sky, I saw this "floating lantern" flying in the sky... I did some googling later and found that these are sky lanterns and are popular in the Asian (mostly Thai) version of Floating Lantern Festival.

Finally almost 7:30pm, they carried out the special lanterns. 

From afar (and this was shot at max 200mm), I saw people paddling out and some started to release their lanterns.

This vignetting was not done in Photoshop but from shooting between people's heads.  I did do some PSE magic to remove the cameraman who was stationed next the the caldron.

As it got darker, the sea of lanterns lit up the waters..

My friends and I walked around to see if we could get a better vantage point..

Into the night, they were still releasing these sky lanterns.   I managed to get one good shot (cropped).  I think in total I saw at least 8-10 or these.

After walking a little bit, I was able to get a shot of the finale song.

They finally let everyone onto beach and I saw the closing announcement.

I was carefully standing in a little above ankle deep water and tried to get some of the lanterns being placed in the water from a canoe.

I think next year, I'll have a better idea of where to go and what to do since the best I could do this year was small blurry lights from the lanterns..

I even tried to crouch down to get a eye level shot.. but it was hard to steady the camera and myself from falling in the water..luckily, I stayed dried.

So what can I do w/ blurry lanterns?  Use PSE Craquelure Texture effects and turn it into a painting...oh well, better luck next time..for now, I'll just enjoy looking at other photog's photos..