Years ago when I wrote for a US-based web site as a part of my living I had to remember that for some reason Americans – or at least those who live in the US – used to let off fireworks for some occasion in July. Rather than our own good British anti-catholic bonfires and celebrations in November, though over the years we’ve mainly forgotten their origins and use the occasion to regret the fact that poor old Guy Fawkes, “the only man to enter Parliament with honest intentions” failed in his plot.
But back in the US, I wasn’t surprised to find Pete Brook in Wired’s Raw File blog a few days back with a post on fireworks, Complete Idiocy Makes for Pretty Amazing Fireworks Photos, despite its unpatriotic assertion “we’re sorry to tell you that Mexico does explosions better than the United States.”
Back then I had to write ‘how to do it’ stuff as well as hunting for good examples of firework pictures on the web (they were fairly few and far between) and looking at these, I think one piece of advice purely on grounds of health and safety would be to stay away from the National Pyrotechnic Festival in Tultepec, appropiately held as Brook points out “in honor of Saint John of God, the patron saint of hospitals, the sick, nurses, firefighters and alcoholics.”
Fortunately you don’t need to put your life at risk, but can just look at Thomas Prior‘s pictures on Raw File.
Of course Lewes in Sussex, England does rather a good job of celebrating our Bonfire Night, though I’ve failed to find a really stunning set of images from there, though there a quite a few of some interest around on Flickr (along with far too many others) and elsewhere. There is a decent set on The Week, but although they give a reasonable impression of the event, I don’t feel they capture the atmosphere in the same way as Prior’s work.