I have so many favorite photos for this date (36 total) in my “favorite photos” folder, it was hard to pick. I finally decided on this one as one of my most favorites for several reasons. One is the actual lightning bolt. Another is the reflection, especially of the left side of the bolt. And I love the clouds which I think really help make the photo. But there is an additional reason.

I photographed this lighting bolt twice. I had two cameras with the shutters open at the same time. One camera was aimed at the lake and the thunderstorm storm. The second camera was behind several of the photography workshops participants to include them with the storm (using a wider lens focal length). If you look closely, the lightning bolt and cloud pattern in the center of this photo is the same lightning bolt and cloud pattern on the left side of the top photo. Both cameras were set to ISO 4000 and an aperture of f/8. Both shutters were set to 30 seconds. I opened both shutter a couple of seconds apart at 10:41 pm. The lightning hit the water in the middle of the 30 second exposures.

This isn’t the only lightning bolt I caught twice.

I caught this horizontal bolt with Camera A.

And with Camera B I caught the same bolt, along with some of the workshop participants. You can see Camera A is on the right side of this photo. The red light on the bottom right of the camera means the shutter is open. The small block with the red light on top of the camera is a GPS unit.

If this looks familiar it is because it is in the same location as my favorite photo for May 11. Just a different young woman. This is another of my most favorite photos for this date.

The light is just about perfect, the clothes are eye catching, and the delicacy of her face is captivating. This is one of my favorite portraits from the annual Asian Festival in Columbus Ohio.

Flags and crosses. One of my favorite photos for Memorial Day.

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Series: Favorite Photos by Date – all about this series