Lightning over Northern Arizona, 2004

This was the best of a series of long-exposure (30 second)

photographs I took as this reletively small, but very electrical

storm was moving away toward the northwest. All critiques welcome!

Nice picture, Congratulations...

Very impressive scene!

This is a much more impressive lightning picture than mine.

Good work.

very accurate timing with this one. I like it a lot - it reveales how diverse everything in nature can be. One moment there is clear blue sky and the other something like this. Makes us humans see, that we are quite naive, if we think we can beat someting like the forces of nature. And thank you for reminding me of this. All is ONE under this big sky...

Love this picture. If you like someone of mine maybe we can chnage something. I would love to hang your one in my room. Maybe you can send a large jpg to me? Best regards Wolfgang 7/7

This makes the houses look like they've found a new, renewable power source-- lightning!

Incredible! Well done.

Difficult to critique - I find this spectacular and congratulate you on the guts, tenacity - and choice of exposure length. It works - raw energy v stepped down/ transformed, 2 main forks, 2 houses. It's a superb photograph.

Not a shot you can go back and do over but i would really like to see those 2 houses vapourized.....and not manipulated...wow...just proves "organic" is the way to go doesn't it. I could hang this on my wall anyday. 7/7

7/7 Excellent picture!

Money baby money

Was that a tall metal or carbon fiber tripod you were using in the open? In any case, very nice photo.

Quite spectacular.

If I could answer Vrindavan: The tops of the trees appear to be illuminated by the lightning. I don't see a fault there.

Thank you for the comments - I appreciate them all. I wanted to address the lighting of the tops of the trees near the center of the image. Indeed, as Terry noted, they are illuminated slightly from behind by the lightning. But Vrindavan was also correct in that the effect was heightened in my attempt to lighten the foreground just a bit. I appreciate your insight, and your keen eyes! Thank you, I might take a more conservative approach with the foreground in my next interation of the image.

Brian

Wow! the two lights of the houses gives a very good contra point. the lightning itself ist absolutely fantastic!

I also hunt the lightnings and I know, how difficult ist is or van be. With the Nikon D100 I got teh best results and it is now really easy. Just the position is the question...

Dionys

Spectacular photograph. Congrats.

spectacular! Simply spectacular! This one over the sea is as close as I've ever got to a good lightning shot and it simply doesn't compare. Well done indeed! Neil

Wow ! Finally a photographer who talks to the angels...:-)

 

I hope you realize how lucky you have been here, and the result is just amazing. Perfect to me, and one of the 3 best lightning shots I've seen on PN... Perspectives converge but I have no issue with that in this case: it may even add to the existing drama of the scene.

 

A little question... The white aura we see around the trees in the background, what is it...? Is it the top of the other trees behind...?

To clarify my question above, I saw this image was not manipulated, and have no reason to doubt the photographer. Yet, at first sight, one may think that this is a composite, so I thought it would be best to simply ask what this aura could be...

One more thing... What was the aperture like, for this image...?

I am interested in Marc?s questions too. But above all I am interested in the photo; it is indeed a very powerful one. Usually I am not very attracted to nature photos, most of them are so lyric showing a nature so still that you can only admire it, sort of Humbold approach. I rather see nature with Darwin eyes, a place of struggle, where powerful forces oppose to each other. This image shows that. Besides it is much more than a genre (lightnings) photo, it is about nature in a wider sense. The composition plays an important role to convey these ideas

Too perfect to be honnest... but great idea anyway ... and catch ... if real... remminds me 'Christine'.

Quite a shot, I agree.

 

The "white aura" is probably top lighting from the umpteen thousand watt strobe. Could it be?

in other words, the lightning is probably not touching the houses, otherwise we'd see light on the roofs. It's probably striking somewhere in the distance, behind the trees, and the light is only impacting the tops, not the houses, or the front of the trees, which we'd also see if the houses were being struck. Do you think?