Lightning Clouds

We recently had one night and a late afternoon of spectacular lightning – we don’t get lightning here very often, and if we do it is usually far in the distance over the Olympic Mountains. I did not get any shots of the lightning, mostly because I did not want to associate too closely with a heavy metal tripod as some of the lightning was striking and sounding within less than a second. It was slightly nerve wracking being out there even without the tripod. Anyway, with the old Nikon 24mm lens on the camera I headed to the Chinese Cemetery, via Trafalgar Park. And I got drenched, because as soon as I was a block away from home it poured. A fleece jacket is not rain gear.

I have more pictures than these, but in many ways this is the standout picture for me. It is another shot with the transformer stone, Sahsima lurking in the background. And another image that has great sunset colours, but works well in black and white too.

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If you want to see lightning photos from this storm then check out these photographers (here and here and here), who were not chicken about walking around with a three-legged lightning rod in their hands.

Canon EOS 5Dii, Nikkor-N Auto 24mm f2.8 lens. ISO100, 1/25th, aperture not recorded.

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17 thoughts on “Lightning Clouds”

  1. Pingback: Lightning Clouds IV « burnt embers

  2. Pingback: Lightning Clouds III « burnt embers

  3. I LOVE your comments “who were not chicken about walking around with a three-legged lightning rod in their hands”, I actually laughed totally aloud on that one! Great shots, my friend, I share your trepidation about walking about outside in the middle of one of these. I saw a story a while ago of someone who had survived many lightning strikes in their life. I have no luck with lottery tickets and long ago decided I’d leave these adventures to those with massive amounts of courage.

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    • Its always nice to make a Toad laugh! There are many cynical definitions of courage, some of which might apply in such circumstances. While the lightning was happening my son was reading stats off his phone about how many people die every year from lightning strikes, and how one’s chances of being struck by lightning are so many times higher than winning the lottery. We went out in it anyway. And a DSLR is a lot of metal to carry around the neck in a lightning storm.

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    • Isn’t it nice to see? It’s been sitting there for probably 15,000 years since it was dropped by a glacier (science version), or possibly longer if frozen by Hals (Songhees version) – either way, it has witnessed and weathered countless storms in that time.

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  5. Pingback: Lightning Clouds II « burnt embers

  7. Outstanding shots. My preference is the black and white but the de-saturated tones in the color are beautiful. Worth getting wet!

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    • Hi Ken – thanks so much. I had to wipe off the lens so many times I have lost count. I kept the camera under my jacket as much as possible. Now, one thing that did come of this was that the focus confirm feature of the chip on the adapter started working again (and still does a couple of weeks later). It had stopped working in Gwaii Haanas (as had another one) – I have idea why, nor what the cure is, but I should take the other lens out in a lightning storm I guess.

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    • Hi SP – thanks for commenting. Its a toss-up for me too. Seeing them “mounted” like this, I think perhaps I should have brought a bit more out of the clouds in the B&W version.

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