Last night we had a small storm roll through which was producing some wicked lightening all throughout the sky. You would have thought it was the 4th of July with the display of lights in the sky.
My husband had a friend from work over for casual drinks, so we all sipped beers outside watching the storm while I kept taking exposures. We sat out from 10pm-11:45 and I didn’t really get much. His friend left quite soon after this, and we both went inside.
We were watching a movie and I couldn’t help but notice that there was a ton of lightening activity outside. I was bummed out that I didn’t get any good exposures before so I decided to go out on my own once more. I’m so glad I did!
Lightening photography is extremely tricky, and you basically just have to be very lucky. For those of my readers who aren’t sure how to photograph lightening here’s how. It is very similar to the star trails that I have posted about before. You leave your shutter open and point the camera in the area that seems to have the most activity. You must have a remote cable release so you can time your exposure and avoid unnecessary movement. Wait until you get an extremely large flash, one that almost illuminates everything around you. Then press the button on your remote to release the shutter. The best type of lightening photography is obviously is with no rain, and few cloud coverage. I happened to find the 15 minute window where this was happening, so that lightening filled the sky end to end.
I only wish that I had a wider lens, I was working with a 12mm and it still couldn’t show just how far the lightening spread across the sky. Anyways, hope you enjoy these photos. They are my first successful digital lightening photos–my first being caught with film at Arches National Park in Utah!
Charlene Champion Photography 
Whoa these are beautiful!!