Shocking Lightning Photos

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First thing is it never fails right you go out for lightning and you get sunsets or you go out for sunsets and you get lightning. Just my predicament a couple weeks ago. During this year’s monsoon season in Tucson I chased the storms for a period of three weeks with minimal results. With the weak monsoon season it made getting these lightning pictures even more challenging than normal. Seemed every time I would head out for the promise of a storm it dissolved and I was shooting sunsets. And vice a versa pretty frustrating when you look forward all year long for those rare storms in Arizona.

So down to capturing these lightning shots, I had an assignment in Phx. a 100 miles away and after photographing the assignment at ASU things were looking good for some cloud build up and I decided to hang around and photograph some other cool things around Phx. and of COURSE what do you think was going on in Tucson. That’s right my friend the biggest lightning storm of the year a hundred miles away.

This return trip from Phoenix to Tucson displayed the best thunderstorms and lightning shows I have seen in a long time. This was an opportunity I didn’t want to pass on especially since we are on the tail end of this year’s monsoon season. So I’m racing down the interstate like a mad man ( ok I was really going the speed limit ) but it felt like I couldn’t get there fast enough.

Stunning lightning photography Have you ever tried to keep the car on the road while checking out the scenery or weather? Doesn’t work too well for me as I always seem to catch the good lightning strikes out of the corner of one eye while I get the car back in just one lane with the other eye great photography moments are not great driving moments.

OMG! The lightning was cracking and the blood was pumping at the thought of missing this storm, the closer to Tucson I got, the closer any off ramp would be for my chance to capture some stellar lightning images. Great lightning shots take a lot of storm chasing, waiting, timing , patience, mother natures cooperation and , of course, a little luck.
First off ramp and the car is on auto pilot. I’m thinking, “Wonder if I can do camera settings before the car comes to a stop?” Guess not such a good idea since I can’t even reach my Nikon without leaving the drivers seat. Yeah finally there’s a exit ramp so I bolted off and hit the frontage road, get the tripod out, set camera settings and make an estimated guess which of the storm centers I should choose to focus the camera at. Ever tried to get your camera to focus in pitch black (I always shoot with manual focus when I shoot lightning) ? I ended up focusing on an object with some noticeable detail from ambient freeway traffic lights, better than nothing.

Lightning over house

Comments (1)

|81.10.247.xxx |2011-11-14 03:39:17 Tonya - congratulations

javascript:JOSC_emoticon(""Hallo;
I find the pictures very successful. This is really very good work.
nice greetings from Austria
Tonya
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