When you see a shot of lightning, or a great sports shot that captured just the right action at just the right moment, or a seemingly once-in-a-lifetime shot, it’s tempting to comment, “Wow you were lucky!” And in reality there is some truth to that. I don’t deny that luck plays a role. But the larger truth is the old adage that luck favors the prepared.

I was able to capture this shot because I had all my equipment together waiting to be set up at the last minute in the best spot for the storm. I’ve spent far too many storms looking out at the lightning and wishing I was photographing it. I finally stopped wishing and decided to start acting. I have a lightning trigger that I use and I made certain to have extra batteries handy. I even scouted several locations in the house and removed the screens from the windows so that I would have a cleaner view. The tripod, camera, memory cards and lightning trigger were all ready to set up as soon as the storm arrived. When trying for lightning - even with a lightning trigger - you have to be prepared to take a lot of shots - most of which are garbage. That means having enough memory cards readily available. Since my camera has both a CF slot and an SD slot, I have a Delkin 16 GB SD card which mirrors my 4 or 8 GB CF cards. That way I have insurance that if something goes wrong with one card, I still have a backup, and if I run out of space on one of my CF cards, there’s still room on the SD card. Equipment wise, I was prepared. Knowledge wise, I knew the camera settings to use and I checked the local radar weather reports to find out the direction of the storms and approximate time they'd occur. The more information you have about your subject, the better. That way you can make an educated guess as to where the best action will occur.

The storm came and a bolt struck within view - even hitting the water. That part was luck, (I wouldn’t have minded if it had been a few feet farther over, but I guess that’s for next time.)

When I imported the card into Aperture, the shot initially looked like this before I made any adjustments other than the crop off the right side. But using the Levels quarter tone control, I was able to darken the sky to make the lightning stand out more as it does in the version at the top of the post. This isn’t the way I usually use the quarter tone controls, but it worked beautifully here. A simple adjustment that made a major difference. That’s one of the things that I really appreciate in Aperture - it doesn’t take much time or effort to bring out the best in my images!