A little background here, I live in Northern California, where summers get very dry, and very hot. We recently had a week or two with consistently over-100 degree temps, mostly 103 and higher. We got a reprieve this past week, when a nice little thunderstorm rolled into town.
Thursday night I went to see my friend's band play, and as they were tearing everything down, I saw the storm in the distance. You couldn't miss it, the lightning was striking literally every 30 seconds or less. I told my wife I would have to ditch her, as this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.
As I was driving out to the Sutter Buttes, the lighting was striking directly in front of me, and I kept worrying that I would miss the storm. It's happened to me before, I've had to eat dinner when it started, and when I finish dinner, the storm is gone. This wasn't the case this time around.
Out in the buttes, I have my "favorite" spot for nighttime viewing. I've used it for stargazing, used it for daytime photography, even used it for daydreaming. When I got to this spot, I got out of the car and started taking pictures. I already had some of the Portra 400UC film that Kodak had a sale on last month.
Once the camera was on the tripod, the first thing I did was point the camera down towards the street, which was heading beyond the hills. I did this because that was the direction the lightning was striking on my way there. Boy did I get a surprise when it struck directly behind me and to the right!
Even though there's no lightning in the shot, I love the surreal effect the light gave. The only thing I wish was that there was something better to look at in the sky!
OK, so I turned the camera to the right, which was where the storm seemed to have moved to. Now this was more like it!
The only thing I was afraid of was missing the lightning, so I took all the pictures at 28mm. All the pictures were f3.5, f4, and f4.5. The times varied, due to not knowing when lightning would strike... anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
After shooting the rest of the Portra, I drove another 5 miles down the road to the Sutter Bypass. There, I walked through a field and saw an interesting sight: the lights from the city beyond a distant bluff were reflecting off the clouds in the sky! I loaded the camera with some Fuji SuperHQ 100, and at f4, I shot a 5-minute exposure.
This is the most fun I've had taking pictures in a long, long time. While out in the middle of the night (midnight to 2:30am), with the nice summer breese blowing, all I kept thinking was this is what it's all about.
I also learned a few things. First off, I think I should have used a smaller aperture for the lightning itself, f8 perhaps, which would have made the bolts a bit more defined. I think that I should have taken some at 28mm and some at maybe 100mm, instead of taking them all the same. Finally, for the pictures at the end of the night, when I was shooting the affects of the lightning on the sky instead of the lightning itself, I should have used faster film.
If you've made it this far, go
here for more pictures from that night.
