Reunion weekend 2013 was threatened with stormy weather to the west of campus. Luckily, the bad stuff stayed away, but it got just close enough to make some very photo-friendly conditions on that Friday night. First, campus was treated to a rainbow, but not just any rainbow, it was one of the brightest and best rainbows I’ve ever seen and conveniently ended right over the Main Building.

And then, as if a once-in-a-decade rainbow appearance wasn’t enough, the night got better: Lightning in the southern sky! What made this lightning special and unique was the fact that it was cloud-to-cloud lightning – close enough to see but not so close I had to be in the storm. (Any fan of “Back To The Future knows: 1.21 Gigawatts!) I’ve been photographing campus for 23 years and I’ve never had this particular combo happen before.

I knew I’d have time for one location, two at most, before the storm moved away or we became part of it. The mental rolodex of photo-friendly locations spun and stopped at…Moreau Seminary. On a slight hill, looking south, with the Main Building and Basilica clearly visible.

Location set, now it was time to worry about the technical side of photographing lightning. Many people assume that because lightning happens so briefly, a fast-action camera setting is required. In fact, it’s the opposite. To maximize the chance of capturing a lightning bolt, you want the longest exposure possible while still being able to correctly expose for whatever foreground element you’ve chosen. That means, ideally, having the camera shutter open for 10-15 seconds with the camera on a tripod and let the lightning “write” itself into the exposure at some point during the time the shutter is open. Long exposures also work best with a cable release – a push-button shutter connected to the camera by a cable – because pushing the shutter release button on the camera body can cause vibrations that blur the image.

In my hurry to photograph the rainbow I’d left my tripod and cable release at home. How to do a long exposure without a tripod? An old photographer friend once told me: God put tripods all over the world, you just have to find ’em. Whaddya know, Moreau Seminary has nice, solid benches facing the lake: Tripod. And my camera has a self-timer: Cable release.

All that was left to do was hope I would have a bolt of lightning while my shutter was open and not in-between exposures. I made about 30 attempts and had lightning flashes in three. Below is my contact sheet from the night. The final image was the last one of the bunch. Some have asked me if I did a multiple exposure or if I added the lightning in post-production. Nope. See for yourself. I color-corrected the sky back to what it actually looked like and that’s all. So I followed a once-in-a-decade photo with a once-in-a-lifetime photo, all in the same evening. I completely forgot to buy a lottery ticket…

Matt Cashore

This is my contact sheet, see lightning in frames 4, 11, and 28

Exposure: 10sec @f/10 ISO 100 Nikon D3s, 70-200mm zoom lens at 70mm

After cropping this image also looks great as a panoramic

Interested in purchasing you very own “Shake Down the Thunder” print, click on the image!