Lightning!

It has been a hot dry summer here in New Mexico, so when some towering cumulus appeared, I grabbed my (aluminum) tripod, my Ikoflex, and a yellow filter, and set up in the field near my house. Suddenly there was an earth shaking Crack! and I saw the bolt of lightning hit the ground not 500 yards from me and my tripod. I ran inside! But it made me want to hear some landscape photographer stories!
Have you ever had a close call doing landscape photography? In the mountains? In the tropics?

Lucky. Go buy some lottery tickets....

Out at Carlsbad Caverns about 10 years ago a poor soul did what you did out in the parking lot and was not so lucky. It takes about 38,000 volts to jump a gap of 1 cm so do the math. It will cause your body to quickly heat due to your internal resistance and then cool to room temperature. When dealing with anything with electricity in it you do not want to go join the resistance. Ever. I'm glad you are okay and better educated.

Not doing photography, but as an 18-year-old I got a thumping great shock while carrying an umbrella during a rainstorm that turned thundery. Like a mains electric shock times four. It set me shaking for a couple of hours. I stuffed the umbrella in the nearest bin and have never had the courage/idiocy to use one since that day.

Here is a good app for those like to shoot lightning pictures. It is called weather bug. You can set it for a safety margin of 10 miles or 50 miles or what ever you think safe.

I actually didn't consider that a close call. I generally stay inside at the first sound of thunder, no matter how distant; the sun was shining where I was standing; there hadn't been any thunder yet; and the storm was far enough away that I felt safe. I have spent time cowering in tents at 10,000 feet with lightning literally around me. In Albuquerque it once hit my house and caught internal wiring on fire. So a kilometer away felt OK.
But I was wrong.

takilmaboxer said:

It has been a hot dry summer here in New Mexico, so when some towering cumulus appeared, I grabbed my (aluminum) tripod, my Ikoflex, and a yellow filter, and set up in the field near my house. Suddenly there was an earth shaking Crack! and I saw the bolt of lightning hit the ground not 500 yards from me and my tripod. I ran inside! But it made me want to hear some landscape photographer stories!
Have you ever had a close call doing landscape photography? In the mountains? In the tropics?

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Shocking! Red rock areas get more lightening strikes than any other terrain.

takilmaboxer said:

I actually didn't consider that a close call. I generally stay inside at the first sound of thunder, no matter how distant; the sun was shining where I was standing; there hadn't been any thunder yet; and the storm was far enough away that I felt safe. I have spent time cowering in tents at 10,000 feet with lightning literally around me. In Albuquerque it once hit my house and caught internal wiring on fire. So a kilometer away felt OK.
But I was wrong.

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As a fellow New Mexican you may know about the Lightning Field out near Quemado:


I'm sure I wouldn't want to st up a tripod anywhere near that during a storm.

ags2mikon said:

Out at Carlsbad Caverns about 10 years ago a poor soul did what you did out in the parking lot and was not so lucky. It takes about 38,000 volts to jump a gap of 1 cm so do the math. It will cause your body to quickly heat due to your internal resistance and then cool to room temperature. When dealing with anything with electricity in it you do not want to go join the resistance. Ever. I'm glad you are okay and better educated.

Click to expand...

Just to clarify, that is about .....
10 mm
1/2 inch

I do not think i would want to be within 10 feet of 40 thousand volts in the air.

Lightning is such a Fascinating/Strange phenomenon.
I have heard so many theories about it, i am not sure i am less or more knowledgeable now.


I typically hear that sky has a Neg charge and the ground Pos.

I have also heard, that there are occasions when the polarity flips. The earth is Neg and the sky Pos.
The amounts of voltage are huge..!!!

I've been lucky...nothing right up and personal so far. Our fire look-out tower was condemned, so occasionally they sent me up in a truck to look for strikes/smoke. The tower blocked my view to the north, so after a bout of lightning strikes, I climbed out of the truck to have a look north. Several hundred feet below me a tree on my mountain had gotten hit and its top was flaming...easy one to radio in with location and other details. I waved to the firefighters when they showed up at the tree.

Most curious time was in mid-July working on a trail a couple hundred feet below a ridgeline and peak (perhaps 6000'). Thunderstorm was moving in, so I sent a few people and the mules ahead to where we'd camp for the night, while the rest of us continued working on the trail as we made our way towards camp. A while after, we were in a white-out with lightning hitting the slope above us somewhere in the snow, no delay between flash and thunder. When it cleared, the snow line ran about 100 feet below us. Over-all, pretty cool. The mules reached the campsite before the storm hit.

I've seen lots of interesting remains of lightning strikes...many times saw a ~4" strip of back that had been stripped off a tree from top to bottom -- fragments of bark scattered about...sometimes in a spiral down the trunk.

Two years ago lightning sliced through a hundred year old oak tree about twenty-five feet from our house. It sounded like an explosion and took out all our electronic equipment even though all were connected to surge protectors. We were okay but it was quite an experience. Insurance covered the equipment less a deductible but not software. Had I been outside I probably would have been fried.

CMoore said:

Lightning is such a Fascinating/Strange phenomenon.
I have heard so many theories about it, i am not sure i am less or more knowledgeable now.


I typically hear that sky has a Neg charge and the ground Pos.

I have also heard, that there are occasions when the polarity flips. The earth is Neg and the sky Pos.

Click to expand...

By convention, the current in electrical circuits flows from positive to negative. But in reality, I’m told, the electrons move (tiny distances) in the other direction. I have no idea what is going on in lightning!

snusmumriken said:

By convention, the current in electrical circuits flows from positive to negative. But in reality, I’m told, the electrons move (tiny distances) in the other direction. I have no idea what is going on in lightning!

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If you run a light bulb from a battery.............. the electrons "leave" the Neg terminal, flow through the light bulb, and "return" to the Pos terminal of the battery.

snusmumriken said:

By convention, the current in electrical circuits flows from positive to negative. But in reality, I’m told, the electrons move (tiny distances) in the other direction. I have no idea what is going on in lightning!

Click to expand...

Ben Franklin has a choice of which was positive and which was negative, he made the wrong choice.

Lightening can go from clouds to ground or ground to clouds. There are no polarization rules for clouds. Also diodes are not involved.

abruzzi said:

As a fellow New Mexican you may know about the Lightning Field out near Quemado:

The Lightning Field

In the remote high desert of New Mexico, a strange array of poles beckon fury from above.

www.atlasobscura.com

I'm sure I wouldn't want to st up a tripod anywhere near that during a storm.

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I wish I knew about that when I was working out there a few years ago. I shot this just North of there with a thunder storm off in safe distance.

Thunderstorm Over Zuni Mountains by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

I watch several Tornado/Storm chaser videos every year.
Those guys get a lot of awesome lighting video and stills.

You cannot help but wonder, 400 years ago... what the people living in 'Tornado Alley' must have thought and marveled about Lightning, Mesocyclones, Tornadoes, etc etc etc
The power is frightening and humbling.

I was towing a car back from Road Atlanta in 1979.
Coming through Oklahoma, late October, at about 8 PM, we pulled over to sleep.
2 hours later we woke up with the truck and trailer rocking.
That was just a 'wind storm'........... sustained winds of 35 MPH

Then there was hail and chain-lightning..!!!

I was a shift manager at the Chevron Station on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon back in 1977 when there was no self-serve, and being in the National Park we were required to offer full service (check oil, tires, windows, etc). We had no covered pumping areas, so when there was a downpour with lightning all around, I called in all the other attendents and we waited out the storm until it was safe to be out there -- much to the anger of some of the crazy customers who seemed not to care if they got some rain water in with that gas, or someone got fried. Busy place.

This photo was taken with the so called 'plastic bag method'.

I did it in Bretagne, France, close to the coast, when working on a book about megaliths (https://www.photoeil.be/books/de-stilte-der-stenen.html).
It was in the fall, and in Bretagne the weather then is very 'jumpy', the rather intensive wind blows the clouds over the land rather fast and, what I would call, 'wildly'.
So, I saw the storm coming from behind me, heard the intensive rain drumming, and wanted the storm clouds in the picture to intensify the dramatic look..
What I did was setting up the camera, a Linhof Technorama 617, on a heavy tripod, hung a weight under the tripod (a shopping bag with a few sones in it), framed the picture and covered the camera with a plastic bag fixed with some gaffer tape.
I hardly got the time to jump back in the car to take cover for the storm rolling over the landscape!
When the storm passed over me and the rain stopped where I was waiting, I hastily measured the light (spotmeter), pulled off the bag and toke this photo.
You can still see the storm clouds hanging over the trees near me but they didn't got over the megaliths yet who are still in the sun (and in contrast with the background)...

Philippe-Georges said:

This photo was taken with the so called 'plastic bag method'.

I did it in Bretagne, France, close to the coast, when working on a book about megaliths (https://www.photoeil.be/books/de-stilte-der-stenen.html).
It was in the fall, and in Bretagne the weather then is very 'jumpy', the rather intensive wind blows the clouds over the land rather fast and, what I would call, 'wildly'.
So, I saw the storm coming from behind me, heard the intensive rain drumming, and wanted the storm clouds in the picture to intensify the dramatic look..
What I did was setting up the camera, a Linhof Technorama 617, on a heavy tripod, hung a weight under the tripod (a shopping bag with a few sones in it), framed the picture and covered the camera with a plastic bag fixed with some gaffer tape.
I hardly got the time to jump back in the car to take cover for the storm rolling over the landscape!
When the storm passed over me and the rain stopped where I was waiting, I hastily measured the light (spotmeter), pulled off the bag and toke this photo.
You can still see the storm clouds hanging over the trees near me but they didn't got over the megaliths yet who are still in the sun (and in contrast with the background)...

View attachment 346661

Click to expand...

I really like that photo, and the other megalith photos on your website. Is the book still available? I have just been in Brittany with my wife to see all those extraordinary constructions, but I didn’t photograph them as there were too many people, and anyway I felt inadequate.

snusmumriken said:

I really like that photo, and the other megalith photos on your website. Is the book still available? I have just been in Brittany with my wife to see all those extraordinary constructions, but I didn’t photograph them as there were too many people, and anyway I felt inadequate.

Click to expand...

Sadly enough there are no more copies for sale; the publisher was a little reluctant to publish this book: imagine a B&W book on that kind of a subject and in Flemish, who on earth would want to buy that! But thanks to a benefactor there was a financial solution...
So, only 1200 copies got printed, but, to the publisher's greatest surprise, these were all sold in less than half a year! To bad there was never a reedition.
And the copyrights I got were rather thin...

W

Philippe-Georges said:

Sadly enough there are no more copies for sale; the publisher was a little reluctant to publish this book: imagine a B&W book on that kind of a subject and in Flemish, who on earth would want to buy that! But thanks to a benefactor there was a financial solution...
So, only 1200 copies got printed, but, to the publisher's greatest surprise, these were all sold in less than half a year! To bad there was never a reedition.
And the copyrights I got were rather thin...

Click to expand...

What a shame! Considering how many very bad photos there are of those megaliths, you’d think it would sell whatever the language.