The dark side of the (TV) tower

I managed to capture a few lightning bolts.

After a Friday night celebration, I wasn’t feeling too fit for work on Saturday. By evening, when I finished, I noticed something brewing in the sky. I really didn’t want to climb a hill, but the lightning was so intense that I felt I had to give it a shot. I didn’t want to leave anything to chance, so I headed to the Tubes lookout, figuring that no matter where the lightning struck, I’d be able to photograph it from there.

As I climbed up, I was worried that if there was a storm at Tubes too, I might get struck by lightning or come too close. But when I reached the top, I was relieved to find that although storms were raging in every direction and lightning was flashing everywhere, only the wind was blowing around the lookout. And that wind was no joke. Despite weighting down the tripod, it still wobbled. I could only shoot by keeping the camera constantly shielded from the wind with the tripod.

It was worth it! The most spectacular lightning was towards the TV tower. From the lookout, you can only see the unlit side of the tower. I saw an incredible amount of lightning and captured a lot of it. I’ve seen pictures where multiple shots from the same position were combined, and the lightning bolts were transferred from one image to another. I thought this technique would best capture the sheer brutality of the storm.