Zzzap! a Lightning Storm Above NYC

far away rumbling and a briefly lit sky
boom. flash. far away.
BOOM! Flash. Getting Closer.

A bolt of lightning over the Queensboro Bridge and Long Island City

Thunder now shakes my walls
Lightning bolts clearly visible
No rain in sight

The view from my Roosevelt Island, NYC, apartment during a June 8, 2008, lightning storm

Wow! Look at That!

Dry lightning storms are a pretty common occurrence in New York City, though the bolts are usually pretty far off in the distance. However, on the night of June 8, 2008, I watched in awe as Mother Nature painted the sky just outside my window with a light show of bright white lines and dark blue clouds.

A huge bolt of lightning, as photographed from the Eastern side of Roosevelt island, NYC

A split lightning bolt crashes behind the Citi building in Queens, NY

Maybe I Should Go Outside

After spending a while shooting from my living room window on Roosevelt Island, I grabbed my tripod and remote shutter and headed down to the riverside for a different and closer angle.

Thunder boomed in the distance and lightning bolts lit up the skies above the Big Alice Con Edison power plant and Queensboro Bridge – a mere few hundred feet from where my wife, Carrie, and I stood.

Lightning lights up the sky behind the Big Alice Con Edison plant in Queens, NY

Photographing Lightning

I used a remote release with my Nikon D80 to snap more than 1,000 photos over the course of the storm in hopes of capturing a few good lightning images. In total, I got five ones that I was really happy with…although I did have to do quite a bit of cropping on some.