Man there were some great nighttime storms last week. There aren't a lot of evening storms in Flagstaff. They tend to form early in the day, and then mosey on to other parts of the state for the night shows. The end result for me is I don't have much opportunity for lightning pictures (daytime lightning photography is almost always a waste of time--except for very rarely sometimes...).
Anyway, I thought I'd put up a few pictures I took last Thursday. These first two are taken out the back arcadia door. It was irritating to have the door frame in the picture, but I couldn't get any further outside without getting soaked. I had to sop up the kitchen floor as it was. As I was shooting these first couple images, a zotter came down a couple hundred feet to the right of the frame and lit up the backyard like the midday sun. Before I could flinch to suck air through my teeth, the crack shook me. Like a 12-gauge shotgun going off in the kitchen it was. Apparently it scared the liquid goo out of Harrison too, as Amanda later described him jumping onto her back like a wildcat. (She had been trying to read them stories to calm various nerves.)
Click images for larger versions...
This next image is from the garage. The orange sodium lights at the Pepsi plant added a neon counterglow to the purple lit clouds that I liked.
About an hour after that storm passed, another one started lighting up to the south. I headed out to the Mt. Elden trailhead near our house and got several shots loaded with lightning. It was an unusual storm. It moved very slowly and was going strong for at least a couple hours. Anyway, I stacked together four of the best shots to show what a full 20 minute exposure would have looked like.
For whatever it's worth, here are some wallpaper-sized versions....
Back Door Lightning 1
Back Door Lightning 2
Front Yard Lightning
Wide Storm View
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