I took this photo while we were still in the house in Albuquerque; in fact, you can see the top edge of a P.O.D. in the bottom right corner of the photo. I love lightning storms – from the rain to the thunder, and most of all the quick flashes of light veining across the sky, down to ground. The evening of this storm we happened to have an amazing sunset. Point in fact, I didn’t alter this image at all. I stood out in our front yard/driveway taking shot after shot in quick bursts hoping to catch a nice branch of lightning. I also had my shutter speed set to slower, because the setting sun offered low light, especially with the level of diffusion thanks to the clouds. Naturally this offered a challenge to me since I was shooting without my tripod and in rapid succession. I caught some other photos of lightning beside this one, but they were distorted primarily by my unsteady hand.
This photo came out the best by far, though I would definitely crop out the oh so lovely moving container. I also wish elements like the telephone lines weren’t there, but since the general focus of the image is the lightning, I don’t care as much. I would love to shoot lightning again, especially with another such sunset. But an evening lightning shoot would be another challenge I would like to tackle as well. Though for a night shoot I would definitely employ my tripod.
