Saudi National Day 2017 in Al Khobar

The Saudi Arabia National Day is celebrated on every 23rd of September to commemorate the establishment of the Kingdom by King Abulaziz in 1932.

Saudi National Day is a truly festive event. Flags everywhere. Kids have their faces painted and sometimes in costumes.

As a Filipino expat, I could only dream the same solidarity and patriotism for my country. Apples and oranges, I guess.

Not interested

I was cleaning my space the whole day (among other priorities *wink*) and only went out in the afternoon for the groceries. I was exhausted by the evening and wasn't excited anymore about going outside to observe, basically because nobody around seemed to be interested anyway.

Was already in bed by 9 pm, about to continue watching a YouTube video about SDH, when I heard some 'explosions' which I assumed to be fireworks. I immediately took the camera and the gorillapod and went to the rooftop. (I should have picked the tripod but there was no turning back!)

Point of View

Thankfully somebody had installed a new ladder allowing access to the topmost part of the building (I don't remember it being there back in 2014.)

It was dark up there, no tall building obstructing, and it was good. Sure, not as 'pretty' as the seaside park where the show was, but I thought the drums, pipes, and antennas were nice foreground elements.

It was actually my first time to take photos of fireworks with a DSLR.





I didn't want to spoil the fun —fireworks here are quite rare— so I quickly tried to figure the appropriate settings until I was satisfied.




I don't know what happened here. Must have moved the stand while it was still exposing.
Once set, I just clicked and clicked without chimping at all and just watched the show.







I was expecting more green fireworks but they were mainly red that made the sky look... red.



The fireworks display lasted for about 15 minutes.

Here's a photo of the neighboring rooftops. Lots of antennas.



Happy Saudi National Day!!!