More Than a Fourth of Fireworks

In stark contrast to last summer where dry weather cancelled many fireworks shows and the one that did go on had to pause to extinguish a small brush fire that started, this summer had plenty of moisture to go around.  Not only did I have the opportunity to go to one fireworks show, I photographed 4 shows in 4 consecutive nights.  This allowed me to get a lot of practice and try out a couple of new techniques that I had read about prior to the fireworks season.  Each show lasted about 15 minutes giving me an hour to hone my technique...so that I will now loose it for next year ;)  While that is the unfortunate way fireworks photography works, this year's shows allowed me to get pretty good by the last couple nights.  The shows I went to were in Monticello, Navy Pier in Chicago, and at the Eyes to the Skies Balloon Festival in Lisle, IL which provided me with the opportunity for different environments and atmospheres which helped make this year the most fiery fourth I've ever had.This work by JD Maloney is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.