Storm Chaser

M and I had just finished a dinner of tacos, salad and a pair of crazy delicious cocktails and were walking around Taos in the night when it began to storm.  I stopped where I was, whipped out my camera and began to try catch the eerie light of the clouds flickering with lightning.  Between shots I heard myself oohing and aching and finally I said to M, “Let’s chase it!“

We hopped in the car, drove towards the storm and wound up somewhere outside of Taos.  I set up my tripod and camera and got to work figuring out my focal point, shutter speed, aperture…  The wind came up.  It began to rain.  And still we stayed out there trying to set up a photograph.

I usually try not to post images that are too similar, I try to be a good editor that way, but I decided to put up a smattering of similar shots in this post so you can see how crazy different the light was depending on where my shutter was able to catch a lightning strike — the luminance is so different in each image here, as well as the colors!  That incredible violet hue in some of these shots is not something I pulled out during editing processes!  Unreal, right?

I love these photos and this was probably my favorite photographic pursuit on this entire trip.  At some point, the rain turned to hail and I had to fold everything up quick and run for the car.  We sat there in the dark, listening to the ice pummel the rag top of the convertible, wondering if we would survive or be tornado-ed off to another dimension.  It was great; an evening that won’t be forgotten.

With that said, my New Mexico posts are officially finished!  Thanks for coming along for the ride!

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