About the Image(s)

I searched hard for the original image but could not come up with it. This was taken years ago from my backyard, and depicts a fairly common occurrence during the summer months here in south Florida ??“ I believe Florida is considered the lightning capital of the U.S., especially when you draw a line on the weather map from Tampa all the way through to Daytona Beach and points south. On really turbulent nights you can see storms forming over the Everglades and heading toward the east, and they sometimes come thick and fast, with dozens of lightning strikes in a few minutes. My technique here is to mount my camera on a tripod and with a wide angle setting point in the direction of the approaching storm and put the camera on 'bulb' setting. Using a remote trigger I hold the shutter open for around fifteen seconds and capture whatever happens during that time. Usually nothing of interest happens (this is a somewhat inefficient way of doing things) then I release the shutter and start over again. Given enough patience I can usually get one or two rewarding images.