My brief experience trying to get photos of those storms has been largely unsuccessful.
Just trying to get the timing and location correct is more luck than skill.
In looking north from the balcony last Monday night there was a steady string of lightning strikes with brilliant flashes across the night sky.
Looking at the left side of the above picture, you can see a TV tower that's about a mile from us; the lightning bolt is probably another couple miles beyond that.
You never know where the next light will flash, but this particular storm was steady enough that at the first flash I would hold down the shutter hoping to catch a second strike. The shot above was the best of the bunch.
More dramatic to me, even though it doesn't look like it is the one to the right.That picture was taken at 11:45, p.m. and missed the strike, but captured the day-like brightness the lightning created for just an instant. Less than a second later, you couldn't see the houses on the opposite hill.
That TV tower flashed it's daytime white strobe lights for a full minute after the bright light before adjusting back to normal midnight darkness.
Storms that night did a lot of damage around Madison. Less than two miles south of us part of a roof was torn off an elementary school and several houses were severely damaged by a tornado. A couple of miles to our east, a tornado touched down in a neighborhood, treating houses like they were made of toothpicks.
Thankfully, no one was seriously injured.
There will be storms, more late night light shows. These shots were taken when the storms were at a distance - the next time they get close I'll head downstairs for shelter.
Be safe out there this summer!
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