Monochrome or a hint of color?

Recently my wife and I toured the historic St. Augustine Lighthouse.  You can climb to the 200+ steps to the top.  I climbed.  Lynn stayed at the bottom.  I took this photo of the the cascading steps from the top of the lighthouse.  I post processed the photo into the monochrome that you see here in Nik/Google Silver Efex Pro.  The original photo with a hint of color is below.

A subtle difference, but I am curious which one you prefer?

My first experience shooting fireworks.

On the 4th of July I had my first experience shooting fireworks.  There are many tutorials about at YouTube and elsewhere on the web that guided me.. At home in Safety Harbor, Florida , we generally don't go to the fireworks due to the crowds and traffic congestion getting there.  Perhaps, I will make the effort though next year. It was so much fun!

These photos were shot along the Intracoastal Waterway in St. Augustine just south of the Bridge of Lions.  Lynn and I were celebrating our 50th Anniversary nearby at the St. Francis Inn Bed and Breakfast.  The b&b was just a 2 block walk from the waterfront.  It was a great spot to setup our beach chairs and photo gear to get a birdseye view of the display.

All of these photos were shot on a tripod.  I used a Manual setting of f8, ISO 200 and 3-8 seconds exposure time. I used Autofocus with manual assist, but in hindsight I believe that using pure manual focus could bring more keepers.

My camera was the Olympus OMD-EM5ii with the Olympus f2.8 Pro lens.  It was a thrill looking at these on the computer.  I certainly am stoked to try shooting fireworks again.  But, July 4, 2017 is so far away....