Turkish astrophotographer Uğur İkizler often turns his lens towards the stars, galaxies, and celestial events far away from us. But although known for astrophotography, Uğur occasionally dives into capturing natural phenomena closer to us, such as lightning storms and rainbows. Recently, he offered the world a stunning image of an hour-long lightning storm, meticulously compiled into a single photograph. It shows all the majesty and beauty of lighting storms, and Uğur shared some details about his photo with DIYP.
How to shoot electrical sparks
I first became interested in trying my hand at recording sparks when I noticed some intriguing static discharges recorded on old X-ray films. I knew that these patterns were sometimes captured on film as a result of static electricity, but I had no idea that they had such a rich history and played a significant role in the understanding of electricity. By 2008, I had conducted some promising experiments with X-ray film.
The recording of the patterns made by static electricity date back to the invention of the technique in 1777 by Georg Lichtenberg. Since he was the first to observe the patterns, they are referred to as Lichtenberg figures.
JunoCam captures a green lightning bolt on Jupiter
When lightning strikes: how to make great images out of any situation
I’ve heard that a bad day fishing is still better than a good day at the office. That’s how I feel about chasing the Milky Way. It’s not only about capturing a beautiful image but is a way to unplug from the hyperconnected world. Before that happens, you typically have to walk up or down a dark trail on a moonless night while trying to talk some sense into the imaginary voice in your head that’s telling you every stray sound is a starving bear or mountain lion with a taste for human flesh.
One’s imagination tends to go into overdrive in total darkness. But when the voice calms down, as it eventually does once your eyes adjust to the dark, you can relax, connect with nature, and revel in awe at the mysterious, starry band of lights called the Milky Way. On this occasion, I didn’t manage to capture the Milky Way as planned. This is how a surprise storm actually made the shot even better than I’d imagined. Sometimes lightning strikes, and you just have to go with it.
Photographer captures Rio’s Christ the Redeemer as it gets struck by lightning
Sometimes you have an image in your mind, but the chance to take it is one in a million. In times like this, you need to prepare, hope, and shoot, shoot, shoot until you get it.
Brazilian photographer Fernando Braga did this for an entire year and finally got the image of his dreams. He captured the moment when a lightning struck Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue, and his amazing image took the world by storm (pun not intended). We chatted a bit with Fernando about his photos, and he shared some details behind this incredible shot with us.
Mountain guide captures volcanic “dirty thunderstorm” on video
A mountain guide has shared an astounding video of a rare phenomenon only seen during a volcanic eruption. Volcanic lightning is seldom seen, and even more rarely is it captured on video.
The guide Chino Adventuras captured the rare footage while showing tourists the the summit of Volcán de Fuego in Guatemala.
Why do some people travel thousands of miles to photograph storms?
How far would you travel to capture the perfect lightning bolt? For some photographers, that answer is “pretty far”. This excellent short documentary released by ABC Australia shows the lengths some storm-chasing photographers are prepared to go to. And it’s fascinating.
Jordan Cantelo is one such storm chaser who travels thousands of miles across the Australian continent. His main directive is to capture that elusive lightning bolt.
Nikon Z 9’s Pre-release feature makes lightning triggers obsolete
If you’ve ever tried to photograph lightning during daytime, you know it’s almost impossible. By the time you press the shutter button, it’s gone. That’s why lightning triggers, while no guarantee of success, exist. But the addition of the new “Pre-release” feature in Nikon’s Z 9 cameras now make those triggers obsolete. It guarantees success, as I found out last week.
Over the last half-dozen years I’ve been running small-group photography trips to places around the U.S. Sedona, with many great locations nearby, moderate summer weather (at least by Kansas City standards!) and a good chance for storms has been high on my list of “need to do a workshop there.” Last week I finally did, and it was as good as I’d hoped (I’ll write a blog past about that in the next few weeks). But it was the thunderstorm we watched Thursday evening that resulted in a new “Aha!” moment for me.
Photographer combines luck and skill in this incredible double rainbow and lightning shot
Most of you knows photographer Jason Rinehart for his light painting work. While he’s passionate about creating art with lights and long exposure, he is equally crazy about capturing nature’s natural light work: thunderstorms.
While scrolling through Facebook recently, I stumbled upon a perfect example of Jason’s passion I didn’t know so much about. He captured a lightning strike under a rainbow, which is not something you see every day. Add another rainbow into the equation and you get a once-in-a-lifetime shot. I wanted to learn more about this incredible photo, and Jason kindly shared some details with DIYP.
Caught on camera: Lightning strike hits storm-chasing photographer’s car and disables it
With the advancements in tech, the proliferation of relatively inexpensive camera equipment and the ever pervasive advancement of social media and YouTube over the last decade or so, storm-chasing has become a big thing. Once a task only pursued by scientists and the absolutely insane, it’s now become pretty normal. For a storm chaster who goes by the name Pi (and More Pi on YouTube), though, this trip was anything but normal.
While looking for tornadoes in Iowa, his car (which he was inside) was struck by lightning and completely disabled. It also fried one of his in-car cameras. Fortunately for us, he had his own cameras recording and the whole event was also captured on camera from the vantage point of his friend, High Risk Chris, in a separate car.
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