Thinking Outside the Box for One Last Shoot in 2025

I’m lucky enough to live in south coast NSW here on the Pacific eastern coast of Australia in a stunningly beautiful region. It’s perfect slice of semi-rural easy living and it attracts visitors from all over the world drawn to the amazing beaches, hinterland and national parks. In this part of the world there are strong traditions and regular rural events that mark the changing of the seasons.

One of those events is the annual fireworks display which takes place in the Berry showground. An always-popular family event where the residents of the nearby villages drive into town at 8:30, spend 25 minutes looking for a parking space and then enjoy a brisk 10 minute fireworks display laid on by the local Rotary.

But, honestly, we’re all over it in this household. Most years we just watched briefly from the back garden and then got on with our lives. We don’t live in the township of Berry any more so ‘watching from the back garden’ is no longer an option, but we still fancied doing something this new years eve.

Then my awesome wife Catherine came up with a cracking idea – why not, she said, drive up one of the hills overlooking the town and photograph the fireworks with that “fuck-off big zoom lens of yours that you’re always polishing”. Genius idea I think you’ll agree.

Having previously photographed from most of the hills surrounding the town, I suggested Woodhill Mountain was the perfect choice and so, earlier in the evening we did a recce and found a perfect spot with a pull-in to park the car in. After a bit of hands-on-hips pondering and checking line of sight with Google Maps, we found a nice gap through the trees looking down to the showground, located just over five kilometres away as the pelican flies.

With the fireworks due to start at 9:00pm we headed out at about 8:30 and drove up the hill, unsure of what would happen since heavy rain was forecast for precisely when the fireworks were due to start. We found our layby and I got the X-T4 set-up with the focus manually dialled in. We could see the distant town below us, all the headlights shining away and fireworks already lighting up the night sky in Culburra, Greenwell Point, Nowra and Currarong.

I did a couple of test shots to ensure that I had manually dialled in the focus correctly. The zoom function on the LCD screen is perfect for this, just dial focus all the way to the right and then slowly turn to the left until the twinkling lights are tack-sharp. I was using my X-T4 with the Fujinon XF100-400mm and since camera and lens are weather resistant, I wasn’t overly concerned about the rain.

Then right on the dot of 9:00pm, the fireworks began.

The mozzies were certainly not slow in descending on us, but it was a beautifully tranquil experience watching the distant fireworks and hearing the very faint crowd noises. I had the camera in full manual and was alternating between exposure times of 3, 5, 10 and 15 seconds to ensure some variety in the photos.

As the fireworks built to their annual crescendo and the last big ordnance exploded across the night sky, we watched the smoke slowly drift away from the showground, the exodus of cars immediately start, more fireworks in the far distant Jervis Bay and an emergency vehicle with its red and blue lights proceeding at great speed down the highway.

We packed up and made our way back to the car, nursing a few million mosquito bites on the legs, but otherwise pleased to have seen the plan come to fruition. As we drove down the steep hill I saw something in the road ahead and came to a stop. It was a Dalmatian that had obviously escaped during the fireworks, but amazingly Catherine recognised the dog and texted its owner who, it turned out, had gone to Gerringong to watch the display there.

We all got out of the car, but the dog was in no mood to be caught and just barked at us. We shooed him back towards his house and away from the road which would soon be a lot busier than usual due to all the locals returning home.

Good deed for the day done, we drove home the back way to avoid the caravan of cars and, as we rounded the corner of our street, the heavens opened and it started pouring down.

Those spur-of-the-moment photo adventures are something I intend to do more of in this coming year.

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Wishing you and yours a tranquil 2026.