And The Thunder Rolls

While I was laying in bed reading a book last night my mom came into my room and told me that there was lightning out on the horizon and that I needed to get up and look out the window. Sure enough there was a quite a bit of it spread out all along the western horizon. My mom asked if we should bring in the painted picture frames Lori had left outside to dry because it looked like it might rain. We decided the storm probably wouldn't come this way and just left them out. I stayed at the window watching the lightning until I was too tired and laid back down to sleep.

A couple hours later I woke up to lightning filling my room with light and thunder crashing. The storm had definitely come this way and was right on top of us! There was no rain yet though but my mom thought to bring in the frames earlier anyway. I watched the lightning for a little bit just thinking how frustrated I was I didn't have a tripod with me to take pictures of this. I made sure my mom was awake for the lightning, and she was, because no one could sleep through it actually. She told me I should try taking some photos anyways. I grabbed my camera and propped myself and the camera against the window sill.

Click on the photos to few them larger and see the lightning better.

The lightning was seriously right over us! You can see the window screen in the photo.


Then the rain started and it came down in buckets! I had to shut the window because the rain was coming inside. That didn't stop me from shooting, it just made the photo even cooler.


The storm kept moving and soon it was going past the house. I ran out to the back porch and stood pressed up against the sliding glass door to keep out of the way of the rain and the lightning. 

There was lightning going off to the right during this shot so it lit up the foreground.

When I first saw this photo after I uploaded them to the computer I thought, "That's weird...I don't remember taking any pictures of the backyard this morning." Then I realized it was a picture of a bolt of lightning that reached across the whole eastern sky. I was really happy when I got it in the shot but disappointed to see that it burned everything white. You can still see the end of the lightning on the left side. 

Here's a collage of the other bolts of lightning I captured.

I was getting drenched standing out on the back porch and was starting to shiver so much it was affecting me holding still during these long exposures. I wasn't going to give up easily though. I'm the kind of person who doesn't like to miss out on things. But then the battery died on my camera and I knew it was time to go in. The lightning and thunder lasted for several more hours without me taking any photos of it, but I had to get some sleep anyway.