My suggestion was just to try and get some surrounding area in the photos, if you can. That's not always possible, but it usually is if you choose a vantage point with the in mind.
BTW, just to add my two cents (and I realize this thread was resurrected from 7 years ago) but my #1 suggestion to most of you is to use a shorter lens. Approach it more like Scott's shots in the first post. The only thing he needed to do was close down his lens several stops and/or reduce the...
From that link...
"if you were photographing a fireworks show and found that a shutter speed of 10 seconds at f/16 and ISO 200 achieved a proper exposure, a shutter speed of 80 seconds at f/16 and ISO 200 would be the proper exposure with a ND 0.9 filter."
Actually, that's not right. With...