Prairie storms have a mystifying quality about them. Quietly they roll in, giving themselves away only by the low rumble of thunder that heralds their approach. Slowly the sky darkens as their mass fills the sky, lighting up the scene in front of them only by sudden bolts of lightning.

It had been another hot day of work on the prairie with my rangeland research crew members, a mixture of graduate students and research assistants meeting back at the trailers where we stay for the week. We noticed some storm clouds building to the east, but we thought the storm would either go by us, or wouldn’t arrive until dusk. It was supper time anyway!

That storm kept getting closer and closer, and we couldn’t help but venture out from the safety of the trailer to watch the lightning show. One of us had the bright idea of heading out, away from all the yard lights and buildings, to see the lightning more clearly. Eagerly I volunteered to drive out there, not exactly to show off my farm girl driving skills, but because I’d been craving getting some lightning photos for quite some time.

I dare not say how many of us piled into the work truck! I can only say just a few decided to stay behind to watch the lightning show going on to the south.

Dusk was approaching quickly, as was the storm and the amazing light show it was putting on for us. Many, “ooh”‘s and, “aah, look at that!” came from the back seats, myself included! Reaching our stop we positioned the truck so we could sit on the tailgate and watch Nature’s fireworks, and what a show it was.

We watched the storm slowly roll in for a good 10 minutes before we started to smell that unmistakable scent of rain. A number of us got a little too taken by the lightning and decided to stay in the truck. Only I and one other colleague, as we both had cameras, braved the impending storm to take lightning shots.

I kicked myself that I didn’t bring a tripod, but found the tailgate to work perfectly. With my dSLR camera on manual focus, I put the aperture settings to their fullest opening possible (“Bulb”). All that was left to do was to simply hold down the shutter until a streak of lightning lit up the sky. As soon as it struck, I released the shutter, and the camera did the rest. This one is by far my favourite.
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Here are three things I recommend to capture good lightning photos:

• A still, steady surface like a fencepost, a tree stump, the tailgate of a truck (engine off), or any other stationary object if you don’t have a tripod.
• Set your aperture settings to Bulb (all the way open). Don’t set it to something like 0″5 or 0″30 because there’s no guarantee that lightning will happen in five or 30 seconds, respectively. It can happen within two seconds or two minutes.
• Courage, and maybe a dark sense of humour! Don’t let the thought of a lightning strike (though very dangerous, indeed) scare you out of getting some awesome (or not) photos. Also, remember that there’s a fine line between courage and stupidity. Please, don’t take unnecessary risks that could land you in a heap of trouble!

Taken on the Mattheis Research Ranch (University of Alberta’s Rangeland Research Institute) near Brooks, AB, Canada on June 23, 2014, with my old Canon Rebel XS DSLR camera with a Canon EF-S 18-55 mm f/3/5-5.6 IS USM wide-angle kit lens.