I tried to photograph lightning late last night during the first and second waves of some pretty hefty thunderstorms. Things did not go as planned, as the lightning became too unpredictable, thus too dangerous. I did get a shot of lightning over the city of Boston, from my perch along the Winthrop coastline. Dejected, I went home and then to bed. Just prior to bed, the weather radar on my trusty iPhone app., was showing a line of heavy storms bubbling-up near the Connecticut/Rhode Island border. These storms appeared to be growing and moving toward Boston. I was too tired and dejected to wait for them, so I wait to bed. Ninety minutes later, at approximately 2:30am, I was awakened by thunder. I noticed that the frequency of the lightning was impressive, with maybe 1 lightning bolt per every 5 seconds. I headed out again but was a bit too late, as I needed some time to get set up (with a tripod, etc,) and to get to my position (trying for a city of Boston skyline foreground). This storm was too fast and the heavy rain, as well, was not helping matters. Finally, thinking the storm was over, it was time to get home and go to bed. Then, my weather app. pointed to some regeneration of the lightning at the tail end, the Southwest end, of the storm. I set up my tripod, Canon EOS 1DX, cable release, and Canon 100-400mm II lens, setting it at 248mm, along the coast of Winthrop. I set the ISO to 50, and my exposure was 5 seconds at F5.6. I do not ever like to “fudge” a photo, so whenever the first burst happens, I then shutdown the camera, thus keeping it real with the one moment of impact. I pointed the camera toward Graves Light lighthouse, and I waited, and waited. Finally, at 3:18am this morning, four large lightning bolts, during a split-second cloudburst, appeared over the Boston Harbor landmark. This photo is almost full frame, as I cropped in from both sides and a little from the top. I have a bit of a too-tight scenario happening at the base of the photo because it was hard for me to tell where the lighthouse and horizon lines were due to the extreme darkness. I was happy nonetheless. Thanks for viewing my site.

Tags: Boston, danger, Graves Light, light houses, Lighthouse, Lightning, Mark Garfinkel, nautical, safety, storm, thunderstorms, weather

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 14th, 2016 at 12:46 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.