Last night was the first of three fireworks displays in Vancouver taking place over the next week, during the Celebration of Light fireworks competition. This display was by the United Kingdom team, with Canada and Thailand on Wednesday and next Saturday.

To get the fireworks with a backdrop of downtown Vancouver, I headed out to Spanish Banks Beach, past Kitsilano and towards UBC. As expected, this was a fairly busy area (it’s estimated that a quarter of the population of Vancouver go out to watch the firework displays), but I got there early enough to get a good spot on a spit of land, giving me an uninterrupted view across the water to the fireworks barge in English Bay, and beyond.

Not only is there a very large turnout of people on the land, but English Bay is also filled with boats watching the display, many of which can be seen in this shot.

This is a five photo panoramic image of Vancouver during the fireworks display. The UK display seemed rather heavy on white and red fireworks, especially in the first half of the display when there was still some light in the sky.