Lightning captured from a monsoon storm outside of Phoenix Arizona.

Coming At You

Lightning captured from a monsoon storm outside of Phoenix Arizona.

Click the pic for a bigger view

This past Saturday night we were blessed with a full onslaught monsoon evening.  Phoenix was surrounded by storms showing up in pink on the radar screen.  Although there was no epic haboob like earlier, there was lightning.  Lots of it.

I chose to head east towards the towns of Apache Junction and Florence.  My drive out consisted of pouring rain followed by isolated pockets of dryness.  I was hoping once I made it to my destination I would be in a dry area.  No such luck in the beginning.  I set up in a light drizzle and began snapping brackets.  Fortunately  the heavy rain never came.  It was bad enough with the wind and the drizzle that I actually started getting a chill.  Once the show stopped I packed up and headed for home.

Along the way I noticed more activity to the north so I pulled over to see if I could get any bonus shots.  The image above was from that session.  When I caught it my first reaction was “sweet”, quickly followed by “holy crap that was close”.  The lightning literally exploded out of the air behind the clouds you see in the pic.  At that point I assessed my situation, standing on a dark desert highway (yes there was a cool breeze in my hair you Eagles fans) shooting pictures of lightning that seemed to be coming right at me.  Ahh good times.

I’m still learning the ins and outs of this storm chasing, but it is fun.  More fun when you come home with some shots.  I’m looking forward to more chasing with buddies Mike Olbinski and Scott Wood.  Both of these guys are storm chasing gurus who I plan to learn even more from.

Until next time…

 

Camera: Canon 40D with a Tamron 17-35mm zoom

Processing: Lightroom 3

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19 Comments

  1. Wow! The lightning is really cool, but I also like the silhouettes of the power lines on the bottom 🙂

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