happy belated fourth!

took my son to see the fireworks in columbia, md, since we thought it'd be too much to go all the way to DC with him and try to get in, around, and out of the crowds. although i'm still bummed that i've NEVER seen the fireworks in washington, DC on july 4, and this my ninth year living in the region!still... my son's first fireworks experience went pretty well! he was scared at first - then spellbound (see the expression on his face in the first shot!) - then he started to enjoy it, and then as soon as it was over he started whining that he wanted to see more! we went with a friend and his daughter, too... i made a point of taking my whole kit to experiment with taking pictures of fireworks for the first time, but i left the bag in the car and then my hubby parked it far away, so i took these only with the 50 1.8 on the 5d, no tripod, no zoom. so all of the fireworks pictures are cropped! and, since i really didn't know what i was doing... not that i'll be doing this again anytime soon, but, if anyone reading has any tips for photographing fireworks, feel free to leave them in a comment!