California got some real weather recently. I wasn't going to photograph the lightning because I was convinced I'd have to drive somewhere to get a good photo and I didn't really want to drive somewhere high to then get struck by lightning. So, I stayed home. One of my friends texted me a photo he took from his front yard and wanted to know if I was getting any. I said no then he convinced me to get outside.
And everyone, it was something. I walked out and to a local park and there was lighting in every direction but the West. I shot with a 14mm lens since I wanted to capture the most sky. I had some troubles as I'd point the camera East then a flash would be to the North and wouldn't be in the frame. I'd notice there's a bunch of activity to the North so I point my camera that way then a bolt happens to the East.
This photo is cropped quite a bit, maybe to a fourth of it's original size because there was a lot of negative space. Cropping it in allowed me to show off the rain that's pouring down with the bolt of lightning.
I'm not a photo expert but it was my understanding that lightning has to complete a circuit, and that circuit is usually the Earth. Yet, this photo doesn't show any branch of lightning making contact with the ground, or anything on the ground. Could it have hit a plane? This is not a split second photo, this was exposed for 13 seconds and this bolt happened about half way through. My only gripe with this photo is that it's a bit out of focus. BUT, I get to cross lightning off my photo bucket list.
I still want to photograph it. One day I'll be ready and drive to a spot to capture it. Hopefully the lightning will be concentrated to one area so I can frame the photo rather than shoot on a wide angle lens, crop the photo, and deal with distortion.
Lightning by
Alex Glanville, on Flickr