The Story Behind the Photograph

I had a lot of curious art lovers wanting to know if this lightning photo was real or digitally composed.

It is real. It is a single shot just as mother nature displayed it that frightful night.

Here is the story behind the photograph.

The date was August 16th, 2020. I arose from bed around 3:22am and saw lightning bolts along the river and the ocean. I was stunned because the type of lightning I normally sees is a complete white sky not individual bolts.

I had her astrophotography gear nearby from a night sky photo shoot a few days earlier. I was tempted to try to photograph the lightning and then realized the setting would be different then anything else she had done. So I went back to bed for about 5 minutes and got up again. I thought what was the worst that could happen? That the photos are over or under exposed.

I went to YouTube and search for Nick Page and Mike Mezeul who have done storm photography. I was looking for possible camera setting. I first tried her Sigma 14mm 1.8 Art lens which was too wide and the overhang on my deck in the photo. I changed to the Sigma 35mm 1.4 Art lens with my Nikon D850 and a Nikon MC-36A intervalometer. Settings were Aperture f/6.3 Shutter 20 seconds ISO 160. Took a few test shots and had a correct exposure. Set the intervalometer to take a photograph at theses setting every 2 seconds.

The rest is history. A few days later I was evacuated because of a fire that was started from this storm.