And then sometimes you get lucky! This image was a
pure gift. We had been shooting for quite a while
and thought we had some great images on film. We
noticed the storm getting a little too close, so we
decided to get the heck out of there. As we were
tearing the 4x5 camera down, Rebecca left the
medium format running when it hit. This strike
scared the living bejeezuses out of us! It's one of
those moments when you hit the deck and cover your
head - of course, in the most delayed reaction.
After assessing that we were not harmed in this, we
both shouted "Did we get that?!?!" We then sped up
the tear down process and got everything packed up.
We ran over to the car about 200 feet away only to
find that in the frantic tear down, Rebecca had
left the keys somewhere on the desert floor. She
ran back to get them as I'm holding three metal
tripods by the locked car. Not our brightest moment
(no pun intended). We've since changed our
procedure a bit and realized even more that this
line of work requires an enormous amount of respect
for nature. I monitor storms a lot closer now and
try to prevent us from getting into these
situations again. So it should be stated... 'Do not
try this at home!' Seriously though, if you do get
into lightning photography, take every precaution
possible and understand lightning safety. --
Keith |
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