Lightning in a Sunset Thunderstorm

This storm started as some nice clouds at sunset with a little rain coming down, but the clouds consolidated over time to become a more energetic cell with frequent lightning. I kept shooting it well into the night, and ended up with a time-lapse sequence of a few thousand shots.

This is a composite image of many of the images from the event, showing both the lightning strikes and the stars as they emerged. To see the time-lapse video, here is is over on Vimeo:

Lightning Storm Formation Over Bald Mountain from Jeff Sullivan on Vimeo.

I had uploaded some quick single and composite images from this sequence previously, but my father wanted a large print for Christmas, so I’ve finally gotten around to producing a better version of the composite.

Fortunately with time-lapse shooting you have a little extra time, since I was with Lori Hibbett, Nicole Sullivan and Thomas Sullivan camping on a mountaintop across the valley from this storm, and I had to manage steaks cooking over the campfire in addition to multiple cameras shooting at different focal lengths.

See more in my Nevada album on Flickr.

In the last few years I’ve posted dozens of photography tutorials on my +Blogger  blog… including ones on on how to produce both time-lapse sequences and star trails images.  Just search for “technique tip” and another keyword to find the one you want: www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com

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