Friday, December 12, 2008

12/12/08 Winter Break: "Electric Photography"

Lightning statue showing electricity at it's best

Well on the 'off-season' from storm chasing I like to use this time to understand my camera a little better so I'm more prepared as a photographer come May and June when I'm chasing supercells and tornadoes. Of course, I'm still photographing winter weather, but when I'm not I'll use some free time to try a few different things. I guess you could say it's kind of like broadening your horizons as a photographer. Today, I decided to test my cameras limits with photography of the 'electric' sort. I've added a few images (my favorites) of a 'lightning' device that I purchased a good few years ago. It's not a lightning ball, but it does the same purpose. Touch it and well you know you're dealing with electricity. Find yourself a dark room and well let your camera do the res.

Not your normal plasma lighting ball as the lightning in this case changes colors
My fingers starting to feel the heat from the electriciy
Another different perspective...
A longer exposure gets this effect (above)
My thumb becoming a positive streamer?

Well that's about all for this post. Hopefully, this is the closest I'll be getting to electricity anytime soon. I don't want to be this close to electricity in the Great Plains this spring no doubt. This was actually a cool experiment to get the correct settings on the camera to get some of the images pictured above. It was well worth the time and patience.