Canadutch
One thing I’ve always wanted was to get some photos of lightning, the really giant fork lightning like you see on all the great photos on Flickr. We don’t get a lot of that here in the Netherlands, and if we do we don’t see much because it’s often really cloudy.
Last night we had a thunder and lightning storm here in Rotterdam and there was a LOT of lightning. Most of it, as usual, was up in the clouds… but there was some really cool visible lightning too. So I took a stool, my camera and tripod and camped out on my front balcony. I was going to get lightning photos come hell or high water! Uhhh… and the high water thing was a definite possibility because it rained like mad last night and we do live below sea level, after all!
In the end I didn’t even care if I caught any actual lightning because it was so cool watching the clouds light up in the sky and how each flash brought something different.
As you can see, I did end up getting some photos of the lightning anyway, YIPPEEE!!! It was so worth sitting there with a numb arse hitting my shutter every 6 seconds!
I took so many photos, most of which ended up with nothing on them, but I quickly realized that if I didn’t take photos one immediately after each other, I was going to miss out on something. The few times I did stop to shift on the stool, scratch my leg or adjust the camera… KABLAMMO!!! MEGA LIGHTNING!! Argggggh! It never failed, every time I wasn’t taking a photo, the lightning streaked across the sky in a totally undocumented display.
Figures… lesson learned!
*EDIT* Just saw a video someone posted of the same lightning in Utrecht. It makes me wish I’d also gotten out my P&S and gotten some video too. ANOTHER lesson learned! Here’s the video:
[youtube id=”vB2P48M0aQw” width=”600″ height=”350″]
Like you, I often admire wonderful shots of lightning on Flickr. I understand how it works but I never had a chance to try it myself, mostly because thunder often hits late in the evening and I’m home, and no vantage point.
I’m lucky that we live on the 3rd floor in a pretty flat country haha It’s usually the clouds that get in our way but they totally worked in my favor this time!
That is so cool! I love lightning pictures (of others! :P).
The site looks awesome, by the way!
Thanks Gaby!! :)
Dear god! Is Gozar on the roof top of that building? (Ghostbusters reference. I’m really sorry)
haha Xander said the same thing about Ghostbusters :P It’s possible because (I shit you not) we saw the Ghostbusters car in the neighbourhood yesterday!
Awesome pictures! Lightning is so difficult to capture… Reminds me of Ghost Busters ;-)
Thanks Dvora! I found the best method was just constant shooting of shots with shutter speed about 5-6 seconds long. Repeatedly hitting the shutter and then going through the photos later to see if I actually got anything. Trying to hit it as I notice the lightning started did not work -at all-!
Proper cool mate, I love taking photos of lightening! I wanted to go out last night to the river, but I’ve left my camera in the office. Muppet.
Last night was also the last night that Kinderdijk was lit up. Imagine how cool it would have been to get photos of the lit up windmills with the lightning in the background! No way I was going to brave the weather and go out there though haha