It was already past bedtime, but Dad asked if I wanted to go sit on the back porch and watch the lightshow.  I asked what he meant, and he said that we were due for 15 minutes of rain in a week of dry, and that lightning storms were perking up in the middle of the valley.We went out back.  After a few minutes, Dad asked if I had my camera.  I did, but not the tripod.  So I borrowed his. After about five more minutes, Dad asked if I wanted a glass of wine.  He came back with that and two plates of Mom’s rhubarb torte.

After ten minutes of shooting 10 and 15 second exposures by hand, Dad said I should get one of those handheld remote buttons.  I said I had one, and went inside to get it.  After catching a few strikes, I settled on what I thought was a good combination of exposure time and aperture.

We were shooting from the porch over the barn, but the messengered electrical line that goes to the shop was in the middle of the frame.  Dad asked if I wanted to go out to the pasture.The strikes were all a good number of miles away, but the energy and power on display that rarely happens so brilliantly or for so long had us exclaiming every couple minutes.

We ended up behind the barn shooting northwest over Albany and Jefferson, engaging the remote shutter button and letting the camera click away until the memory was full.

Out of 36 good exposures, this is the best shot of the night, a single 5 second exposure, aperture f/18, ISO-800.

Lighting over Albany and Jefferson Oregon