After returning from a 22 hour travel day Thursday night, I was worn out Friday. Mark and I ended up taking a nap around 4pm and I only woke up because Mark was shouting at me to get dressed, we're gonna shoot some lightning! I didn't jump up too fast.
He has been waiting for monsoon season since we met 3 months ago. All he can talk about is how excited he is for it. The first unofficial time we went, was spur of the moment in my backyard. By the time he helped me to figure out his damn tripod, I had missed the best strikes...while he shot the best one.
We headed over to some desert trails where we used to romp my truck back in high school and quickly set up our cameras. The storms started off pretty slow, but were quickly building. Firing off a few test shots to determine where I wanted to shoot, resorted to at a photo of a beautiful sky.
It started to rain and as the storm became over head, I had never seen Mark so scared before! Within moments, lightning was striking in every direction as Mark hid in his car for protection.
I started to get a bit frustrated because I was struggling to get a single decent shot. First I couldn't figure out how to lock Mark's shutter cord. Then I managed to miss strikes between the .0005 secs it takes to re shoot. Mark only made it worse as he pranced around with every shot he nailed.
Finally, a huge bolt flashed over head...
Moments later, I captured another stunning thunderbolt.
I decided to move around a little and not point the camera in the same direction as my mentor to get my own unique shots. Right behind us were some trees and saguaros that were being relocated, so I set up between them to create some nice framing. Unfortunately, the storm was moving away from us now and the bolts were not as dramatic looking.
Mark had said that I had already got some of the best bolts he's seen all season, so I was more apt to moving around. But like I had mentioned, the storm had now made its way behind a mountain.
I can see why he is hooked, and can not wait for the next big storm!
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