Thunder From the Mountain and Lightning From the Sky
About 2:30 am, I awakened to the sights and sounds of an impressive thunder and lightning show going on outside my window. As the storm got nearer, the thunder crashes echoed through the parking lot and the concrete buildings of my apartment complex. After nearly continuous, multiple flashes over the space of 15 minutes, I decided that I would try to take some photographs of the lightning bolts contacting the earth somewhere behind the hill behind my apartment.
My strategy was simple. Put the camera on a 2-second shutter speed and click…I was bound to get something every time I hit the shutter. What I was not expecting was to get an incredibly massive bolt of lightning slaming into the hillside on my side of the hill at just about eye level and only about 40 yards away. The multiple images of the trees are the result of me jumping back and nearly giving birth to litter of kittens when the lightning struck. Here’s the picture:
