Kentucky Lightning

Molly and Nate's house in Covington, Kentucky October 18th, 2007 at 11:38 PM. Photo taken with: Nikon: D70 @ ISO200, 1.6"; 17-55mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S DX @ f2.8, 17mm. From Molly and Nate's front porch October 18th, 2007 at 11:37 PM. Photo taken with Nikon: D70 @ ISO200, 1.6"; 17-55mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S DX @ f2.8, 17mm.

Lightning is one of the awesome powers of the natural world that surrounds us. Living in Seattle, Washington I don't get the opportunity to enjoy a good lightning storm too often, that is why I was happy to experience and get a few photos of a thunderstorm that passed through the Northern Kentucky Cincinnati area on the night of October 18th. The day was warm with mild to high humidity and a cold front was foretasted to pass though, a perfect combination for a thunderstorm.

I was staying with my brother in-law to be, Nate, when he came upstairs and said if you light lightning there is a great show going on outside. I had been reviewing photos from the wedding rehearsal dinner in the back of the house oblivious to the show going on out front. It hadn't started raining yet, but, it was windy and there was a lot of cloud to cloud lightening, probably a strike every three seconds. With this rate of lightning strikes I was hopeful that I would catch a good bolt with my camera. The problem was that I didn't have a tripod. Improvising I used a chair on the porch to steady my camera while using a wireless remote to trigger the shutter. This technique delivered the second picture, however, I wanted to see buildings in the picture. Next I tried bracing my camera against the luggage rack of Molly's car that was parked in the street. This gave me a view of the front of their house and the light show that was no going on behind it. All this time there was no rain so I had a great opportunity to operate freely out side.

It wasn't long before Nate said he could smell the rain coming and just a minute later the down pour started with even higher winds blowing the rain all the way up the porch to the house. Nate and I ran inside to check the windows and review the pictures. Of the 76 pictures I took two of them were worth posting.

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