Wednesday, June 23, 2010

itching for a good light show

Monday night I went to bed at a decent hour. There was a spectacular lightning show going on outside. All I could think about was photography; I was itching to catch me some lightnin'! Feeling über restless, I asked myself, "What the heck am I doing in bed?!!" So I jumped out of the sack, hobbled downstairs, and set up the tripod outside the front door.

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There was no rain. Just frequent, muffled bursts of lightning. I set the program to "bulb" and held the shutter open for 20 or 30 seconds at a time. My camera takes a really long time to record those images... I wonder why.

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I tried over and over and over again. The lightning mostly showed itself as a diffused brightness in a patch of clouds. I wanted to see proper lightning bolts, not radiated light. The whole time, I felt pesky mosquitoes all around me. I experimented a little with infrared, but the ISO was too low to catch anything.

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Finally, I decided that the frequency had subsided enough, that I should call it a night and get back to bed. I woke my wife up to show here one shot (not this one) that I caught, but I didn't post it here, because it was blurry.

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I wasn't in bed five minutes before itchiness drove me to the brink of insanity. I HAD to get up again!! We have this little tube of stuff to put on mosquito bites, and it has ammonia, so it smells nasty. They got me real good on my calves, feet, and even toes!! (Shhhh... Don't tell anybody, but I have bare feet under my desk today.)

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I'm still itching from being a human sacrifice on Monday night, but it was totally worth it! They say we can expect large hail and strong winds tonight. This time, I'll stay inside, if you don't mind.

11 comments:

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Craver: Very cool shot of the lightning.

donsands said...

Nice!

I was actually trying to take some shots of ligthning last evening. We had a heat storm. Blue skies, white clouds, dark clouds, and pink clouds, and lightning.

I was able to get a few nice shots of the clouds though. Oh yeah, and the bright Moon was out as well.

DeniseinVA said...

Oh those mosquitoes are awful. I have a terrible time with them. I've just bought some 'green' insect repellent to try. If it works I will let you know its name.

Your photo is great. I have never been able to capture lightning and I do love that purple hue.

Thanks for stopping by. I think you and my husband are very alike in that you have similar taste in hotdogs. Gregg always shakes his head when I reach for the ketchup ;)

An English Girl Rambles

Craver Vii said...

More like hot and humid, Fishing Guy. Thanks! Hey, I saw your friend suggestion from Facebook. I don't recognize the name, but if he's a friend of yours, he's gotta be alright. :-)

Hmmm... may I offer some constructive criticism Sandman? The problem is that you just didn't get enough mosquito bites to pay for a lightning pic. (heh heh)

Okay Denise, the very first image I got in this cracked brain is a repellent that actually colors your skin green. I got it now, though. That's funny about Gregg. I always tease my kids the same way. In fact, when they say, "pass the ketchup," I pretend I didn't hear it.

Gaelyn said...

That awesome shot was certainly worth a few measly mosquito bites. Especially as you had the cure.

Shammickite said...

When I first came to live this side of the Atlantic, one measly mosquito bite would cause me to swell up like a balloon, but I seem to be immune to the wee beasties now. I think the secret is to ignore them and the itch goes away. The lightning pic is terrific, well done, it was worth getting all those pesky bites. (Dontcha just love the word pesky? It's so oldfashioned.)

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

I have given up trying to catch the lightening so you did excellently by getting this one Craver.

As for the mosquitoes .... not much I can say except 'enjoy the rest of your summer'. LOL!!

Chris said...

Well it was worth the effort. The picture is beautiful!! That's something we rarely see in Iceland (thunder), except when we have active volcanoes :-)

Craver Vii said...

That's exactly how I feel about it, Gaelyn. And I'd do it again in a... well, let me get past these few dozen bites, first.

Normally Shammy, I'm pretty good about not scratching them, but some of these are on areas that get scratched just by walking, like the insteps of the feet, or the knuckle on one of my big toes. The pesky factor wants to push me to the brink of insanity.

I would not have tried to capture the lightning Joan, except that it was so frequent this time, that my chances were realistic.

That's strange about Monday night's light show Chris... I don't remember hearing much thunder to accompany the prolific lightning. I'm glad we don't have volcanoes here though. You are a brave man, Sir.

lime said...

you do suffer for your art!

EG CameraGirl said...

This is very nice too, although I did see the second one first and think it's spectacular. :)