Thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening...
As you can see in the picture here, I almost got zorched today while out shooting pictures of the storm that blazed through this little corner of cheeseland. Granted, at best guess, that little blast of lightning was a fill two or three-hundred yards away, but it washed out the whole world in eye-frying white and made such a sharp and ear-splitting crack that I actually jumped.
In fact, it might have made my fillings tingle. I can't be sure since, not only was I taking a picture of lightning blasting a hole in the earth over on the next block, but, in my pocket was a cell-phone that had, at that second, started vibrating with an incoming text-message, and well...
It may just be too soon to talk about the terror and fear I felt. If I drink a lot and leave the lights on, I might just make it through the night.
Anyway, one of the things that surprised me was how little of that explosion of light my camera picked up. As you can see, the bolt of lightning is actually pretty clear, and you can even see another bolt faintly feathering out a little less than half the way up on right edge of the image (and don't forget the bonus lightning up there on the top. Sweeet!).
The reason for the lack of blazing, eye-frying light in this shot is because my lens was stopped all the way down to a near pin-hole f/22. That's pretty tiny. To prove to you just how much light there was when this little jot blazed its way to terra-firma, it was crazy dark here when the storm rolled in as you can see from the streetlight in the bottom center of the picture. And, if you need further proof, you can find it in the bigger image here. If you look in the upper left corner of that photo, you'll see a smattering of little white dots. Those are raindrops that have been backlit and frozen in place by the flash of lightning.
Now, as for that black smudge in the picture, my guess is that it's a bird of some sort saying "WTF?!? Is my ass on fire?"
Oh, and the text? Well, it went something like this:
Me: I almost got nailed by lightning. Got a neat picture though.
Her: Dork! You're no good to me fried!
-DP
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Neat slideshow ... uh, she is right, I don't think you would be any good fried. Baked and drizzled with Olive Oil ... that may be a different story.
I was riding my bike back to my hotel on Port Washington during the light show. Kind of unnerving. Then, inside the hotel, there's a pool with a dome-like atrium, and there was REALLY a light show in there.
At least the rain here goes away when it's worn out its welcome.
What an awesome picture! Too cool. Try as I might, though, I can't see the faint bolt on the right side of the picture. I love thunderstorms, too, and do stoopid things like stand at the sliding glass door looking out. A few years ago, we were sitting here during a storm and there was a huge CRACK and flash of light, and seriously, my ass left my chair, I jumped so hard. It fried our modem and a phone line (and one of the phones), and come to find out, lightning had hit a tree about 20 feet from the house. Yikes! The tree is still alive, but the poor thing is still dropping bark. Maybe that's the arboreal equivalent of shitting your pants, I don't know.
What were we talking about?
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