More from the Catskills. For an assignment, I had the intention of shooting fireworks on the 4th from Overlook Mountain. I knew it was a risky proposition to assume my distance shot would come out from such a high vantage (some 2,000 feet over the fireworks, and some 10 miles distant). I took the precaution of setting up some “Fire Works” shots the evening before, whose fire was started on wet wood between rainstorms.

And for those that might be wondering, I recommend whittling slivers out of the center of wet wood to create dry kindling (shavings), and peeling the wet bark off of very small sticks. You’ll need a lot of both, though; this was something like the 12th attempt of two of us, and its prep took about 45 minutes.