lightning storm

I love thunder and lightning. I love the bright flashes of light, the roaring claps of thunder, and when it rains, I love the loud tapping of raindrops on the outside of the house.

I don't love thunder and lightning as much when I'm caught outdoors. A number of years ago, I was hiking across a ridge in Colorado, when a storm quickly moved in and lightning began to strike no more than a mile away from us. The air become so charged that I could feel electricity running through my hair, and the swinging of my hands as I walked caused sparks to form. My buddy, Matt, and I sprinted out of the saddle we were in and onto the next summit, where we failed to find the trail down. Our only course of action was to surf down a scree field, away from the dangerous electric bolts emanating from the sky. (Later that day, while watching the news, we learned that a woman had died because of lightning strike, not far from where we had been hiking.)

I made this photograph last night during a lightning storm. I set up my D90 and tripod on the back porch and aimed at the sky. Setting the shutter to "bulb" mode and using a wireless remote, I repeatedly opened and closed the shutter, trying to catch the streaking lightning bolts but preventing the image from becoming too bright due to long exposure.

I never seemed to have my camera pointed in the right direction, and on several occasions when I saw lightning overhead, I saw nothing but a bright sky upon closing the shutter and checking the image on the camera's LCD.

The orange sky here is due to the long exposure and white balance, which was set to "cloudy". In actuality, the nighttime sky was a dark blue, the light of the waxing moon hidden by thick clouds. I finally managed to capture some lightning, sufficient reinforcement that I will research lightning photography technique it preparation for the next storm.