Just a few shots from last night as an active but small thunderstorm cell passed quickly through the area. I had actually gone out on errands after the storm, seemingly insignificant, passed my area, and drove directly into a seething thunderhead. Had to go back to get my cameras and ended up missing the best part of the storm.
The foreground is “okay,” not ideal, but you can’t direct the storms where you want them. My area actually has few locations with a good view of the horizon, and using gaps in trees works terribly – lightning is rarely so obliging to stay in the gap. The cell was moving away from me, bearing right a little, but the most distinct flashes were to the left side of the frame. To the right, however, was the full moon that rapidly got covered by clouds – the glowing edge you see at top right comes from the moon hidden only minutes before.
I fired off 48 frames, trying to balance the traffic and the lightning strikes, and got only a few usable images – that’s how it goes. Some can be cropped tighter, like below. Some have squiggly little bolts like a child got their hands on a fine-tip white marker, which is not what you want from storm shots. To get the number of useful frames that I did actually means it was a successful night, and I’m cool with it.
