Portage Lakes held there fireworks show on July 5th instead of the 4th because Akron had theirs on the 4th. I didn't have a chance to attend the show in Akron so I made sure that I could go to the show at Turkeyfoot State Park in Portage Lakes. This was the first time that I have ever photographed fireworks and also the first time that I have ever been to this park. About 6 hours before the show started I scouted out the location and asked some of the locals that were at the park where the fireworks would be seen. 

I decided that I would try to get to the park a couple hours before the show so that I could find a good parking spot and a good place to setup my camera with a tripod. Luck was on my side and I was able to setup my camera about 5 feet from the lake shoreline and capture some great shots. There are some great articles and tutorials on how to shoot some great shots of fireworks. For the these shots I used the BULB mode on my camera with a shutter release cable; this allowed me to use 3 to 10 second long exposures to capture the streams of light.

If you like what you see or have any experience photographing fireworks; leave a comment and let me know.