London New Year’s Eve fireworks over the London Eye, seen from the roof of Portland House. Taken with a Hasselblad camera.
© Copyright Stewart Marsden. This image is not available to license.

The first time I tried to photograph London’s New Year’s Eve fireworks, a friend and I planned to shoot from a building site in South London. We didn’t have permission, and the police walked us off it. I saw the new year in at the side of a road, with just enough of a view of the London Eye to get a couple of pictures. It left me determined to do better.

Later, while I was looking for work, I sent my London photographs to every organisation I could think of. Visit London got in touch. I was their official photographer for three years, for the displays that welcomed 2016, 2017 and 2018, with permission to go up on rooftops that are closed to the public.

Thousands of people post pictures of the display every year. I wanted mine to scream London before they screamed fireworks, so each year the first job was deciding where to stand. One year, Titanium Fireworks, who put on the display, gave me a spot in front of their control booth on the bank of the Thames.

My first year was on the roof dome of Methodist Central Hall. I had to wait a few hours before midnight, and it was really cold up there, so I was grateful for the thermos of soup I’d brought with me.

On New Year’s Day, two years running, National Geographic ran one of these pictures as its Photo of the Day, online and in print. These pictures, and a good word from Titanium Fireworks, are why I was asked to photograph the fireworks at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games opening and closing ceremonies.

Hasselblad lent me an H6D-100c, and Vanguard sent me the tripods. I’ve been a Vanguard ambassador ever since.

If you’d like to try it yourself, I’ve written up how I photograph fireworks.

Hire me for New Year’s Eve

I take one New Year’s Eve booking a year. If you’re a business with a view of the fireworks, here’s how to hire me for your venue. If you’d like the display photographed from your own home, here’s how that works for private clients.

Prints and licensing

Prints and licences are available for some of these pictures. Pictures marked “not available to license” were part of my Visit London commission. To ask which pictures are available, or about a print or a licence, get in touch.

Tap or click any photo to see it full screen. The panoramas look their best on a big screen.