I’ve spent many stormy days in the badlands of New Mexico capturing lightning, and I find that if you’re patient and willing to get a little wet and possibly struck, you can capture some stunning images.
The bolts seemed to consistently strike in the same general area, which seems to happen a lot with these smaller storms, making finding compositions that work a lot easier. Rather than just shooting a storm over a landscape of nothing, I diverted from the trail to the usual spot because I thought I could get here faster and maybe align with the moving storm a little better.
I ran into a herd of wild horses, all clearly riled up by the lightning all around. Sliding down the embankment behind these hoodoos, it took all but 10 minutes to capture over a dozen bolts with the 15mm frame, and I packed up and bolted back out of there.
When I looked at the images to choose which one or ones I wanted to edit, I realised one of the bolts struck IN the valley, whereas the rest were all beyond the closest ridge, which made the choice easy. What a moment that I will never take for granted.
One Response
Really nice work on this, Joshua!