Chasing lightening, again

June 13, 2008: maybe next time.

We have had our share of stormy weather this year in the Midwest. Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin are just a few of our neighboring states that have been hammered pretty bad in the past few weeks.

On the way of from work Thursday night/Friday morning we had more tornado warnings around my home up north. It was pretty clear leaving Chicago but along the Northwest Tollway the light show started. Some how even though I was driving into the storm I missed it.

Following up on my last set of driving long exposures I thought I would try again to catch a lightening bolt. There was not much traffic. I could see the lightening in the distance and the road was covered with leaves and branches from where the storm winds had blown through. In Crystal Lake there were power lines and trees down along the road but the worst I faced was a bit of heavy rain.

I rested the camera on the dashboard and popped off 10-20 second exposures as I drove. There were a few bursts behind the clouds and just off camera but again the most interesting frames were the street lights.

I'm not done chasing this shot yet.

-jk