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.