ed note.  I forgot to publish this last night.  oops.

One of the photography goals that I set out for myself at the start of the summer was to take a picture of some lightning.  I have made some half-hearted attempts in the past on this one, but never met with much success.  I have since invested in the tools that I need (portable tripod, shutter remote, and kick-ass bright lens), so I thought that I would have some opportunity.

With the hot humid days that we have had this summer, you think that I would have had plenty of time to take the pictures that one needs to take to have taken a photo of lightning.  I hadn’t even tried.  My top excuses were generally that it was too light out, too dark out for no tripod, too wet, I didn’t have my camera, or that the lils were needing my attention.  I admit that these are all pretty lame excuses, but they were all I had.

The weather turned to Fall the other day, and I feared that my opportunity had been lost.  I wasn’t too crushed, as I have been learning all sorts of new tricks now that I take a bazillion pictures a day, but it was a bit disappointing.

Summer came back today, and with it the perfect conditions for a late day thunderstorm.  I was ready, and wasn’t about to let the excuses get me this time.  When it got too wet out, I went inside and took out the screen on a window.  When the storm moved past us, I moved to the front yard to watch it move away.  Woo came with me and we sat under a tree watching it move on.  Bedtime came, my plans for a walk were cancelled, and I went back outside for the next storm, bringing my tripod and remote with me.  I learned that lightning strikes the moment the you take your hands off the remote, and continued to refocus.  Patience paid off and I took this:

It is not the best lightning shot and I’ll keep trying, but for now it’s my lightning shot, and I am pretty pleased with it!