Tuesday, August 05, 2008

BOOM!


So, I'm sitting here at my computer desk, recording some Christmas music, when I hear some thunder outside. I keep working. I hear more thunder. Keep working. But something is gnawing away inside my head. I should be doing something else. Then I realize I don't hear any rain. And it's after sunset, so it's dark. And there's thunder, which means lighting, and it's dark, and it's not raining. I should be outside trying to get a picture of some lightning! I haven't done that in probably five years, and at least three cameras ago. So I grab all my stuff and head outside. I set up the camera, set it to a wide-open shutter for some five second exposures and try to shoot. But the camera won't auto-focus. I try to set it to focus on infinity, but I can't see anything through the lens to see if I have it right. I waited too late to go outside, because the storm seemed to have moved away. But, I got one shot out of about fifty. It's out of focus, there's water on the lens, but it's lightning! Pretty cool, eh?

5 comments:

  1. very electric "frying" good shot Ern!!

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  2. I especially like the stalks of lightning in the distance!

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  3. I lived in Orlando for about ten years, and I remember vividly lightening strikes like the ones you captured

    -- thunder that would peel and crash immediately after the crackle of the lightening .. the walls would rattle and the pictures would shift and tilt.

    Now, in San Francisco, I suffer with anemic, limp thunderstorms. The natives bundle in coats and grimace and huddle, frightened by the rare occasion of a mild flash and soft distant rumble ...

    But we Southerners ... we know what a really good thunderhead can carry with her...


    Thanks for the memories, Ernie


    zepp

    P.S. -- Earthquakes are something else all together.

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  4. Nice. we had a bad lightning storm here in Upstate NY that same night. Something behind our apartment got hit because I heard the loudest thunder I'd heard since the last lightning hit that I saw about 10 tears ago. The flash was at the same instant as the thunder crash. We also got 2.2 inches of rain that night which is a lot in just one passing storm for us.

    Dave

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