This past weekend was spent at the lake with a bunch of my family. It was fun and good to see aunts and cousins that I haven’t seen in awhile. While there, I decided to experiment with some night photography. I don’t have much experience in this area and thought it would be fun.

The first two were taken on a very clear night.

These last two were taken on a night that started out clear and rapidly turned cloudy. As you can see, we were dangerously close to getting caught in a thunderstorm. This would’ve sucked since there were 5 people sleeping on top of the houseboat, including me and my husband.

This first one had an exposure time of 30 seconds. So as you can see, the clouds were moving pretty quick.

Once I started seeing lightning, I got really excited as I have always wanted to capture a lightning photo. It never failed though, every time lightning struck, I had my camera pointed in completely the wrong direction. After about 10 failed attempts (probably at least 45 minutes) I finally got it!… well, kinda. I’m sad the the bolt runs off the edge of the frame. This ended up being that last strike of lightning in our view and my very first lightning photo ever! =D Now I can’t wait for another thunderstorm.

Tags: lake, lightning, photography, storm, vacation