It's all about the lightning

I like lightning photographs. Whenever storms are approaching, I check www.weather.com to see whether they will hit Middletown, N.Y. I have a one favorite location I try to get to before the storms hit. There's a nice view of some church steeples to the west (where the storms usuually come from), and I try to get dramatic bolts of lightning in the background.

A few weeks ago I went to this spot, but before I could get any photos, heavy rain started falling. I have other spots where I get a good view of the eastern horizon. I head there to get the storms moving away from Middletown.

So I drove to a spot facing east that has power lines in the foreground. Because the rain was still falling pretty heavily, I wedged my tripod next to me in the front seat of the car. I took more than 100 long exposure photographs. The only one with lightning was blurred. I must have moved the tripod.

This is a photo without lightning that I thought was interesting anyway. I believe the lights are from a passing ambulance. Most of my pictures only had streaks from headlights and brake lights at the bottom of the frame.



A few days ago, another line of storms rolled through and I went back to the same spot. This time I set up my tripod outside the car despite the rain. I took about another 100 pictures. This was one of two with lightning.



This photograph was a 2.5-second exposure because it was still twilight. The other picture, taken at night, was a 25-second exposure.

Here is a screenshot showing some of the frames without lightning.

It's all about the light

Last week I took photographs at my daughter's elementary school chorus concert. The concert was held in an auditorium, but for some reason the children were on risers in front of the stage instead of on the stage.

That didn't affect the sound of the concert, but did affect the light falling on the singers. The children were mainly lit by two sets of lights on the sides of the stage. So the light was not as bright as normal stage lighting, and there were more harsh shadows visible from the middle of the auditorium.

In the following photograph taken from in front of the stage, you can see some of the shadows. The paper plate are causing some, but not all, of the shadows.



When I moved to a different angle, the light was much more dramatic. Some of the photos were blurred because I had to use a slow shutter speed (ranging from 1/125th. to 1/40th of a second). Some of the photos, like this one, I really liked. I think the boy looking up is checking out the circle of changing colored lights on the ceiling of the auditorium.

Road race finish line

I took pictures at a 5K road race near my home last weekend. I used my new mountain bike to get runners at the start, near the 2-mile mark and at the finish line.

One of the best pictures came near the finish line. But the photograph is about spectators, not runners.



Sometimes it pays to turn around and see what is happening behind you. Sometimes reaction photos are better than action photos.