The above image was taken of 4th of July fireworks in Wisconsin. It's filtered using a pair of diffraction lenses they were handing out for the night.

Interestingly, the fireworks in Japan are different than in the States. There are various reasons for this, one is the fact that since 4th of July is America's Independence Day, they use local companies to create the fireworks. Similarly, Japanese fireworks have a long historical tradition that I'm sure leads them to use Japanese only companies. The difference in the actual design of the show is very interesting also. Japanese will actually schedule out the fireworks show, so you know what sequence is happening. They run in bursts, so you will get a shower of Gold only fireworks and then an explosion of red. It's very structured. American fireworks are constant and mostly random.

Watching the fireworks got me to think about their design potential. I think fireworks are amazing, but I don't think they've reached their full visual (or audio) potential. For the centuries they've been around, they haven't changed too much, and this is odd considering the control that can be currently exerted on them. You can control the X, Y, Z position, and Color within 2 or 3 different stages. Basically, it is my belief that you can do any sort of largescale three-dimensional structure suspended in the sky for a moment.

Prolific artist, Cai Guo-Qiang does some amazing things with fire and fireworks, such as the giant 'O' that he outlined with fireworks in Central Park during 2003.

In the future I would love to get into the actual engineering of the fireworks itself and try to exert control over its output design.