Sunday, January 17, 2010

Punching a hole in the sky


Seek brightness
London, ON, April 2009
About this photo: It's white week all week long here at Written Inc. What am I talking about? Head here and all will be explained.
Weather in these parts is always entertaining. Living in between two Great Lakes means we get all sorts of lake effect storms. In winter, they show up on radar as fingers that reach down from the lake and keep dumping snow for as long as the system can hold together. It's so localized that despite the fact that Right Here looks like Santa's homeland, a 20 km drive east or west will get you to bare pavement. I find that fun.

Similar theatrics play out in summer, where our typically hot, humid weather can come to a violent end when a cold front sweeps in off the lake and powers storms that compel you to pull up a chair in the living room and watch. Or, as I did here, head out onto the back deck and take some pictures.

As I let my eyes wander around the sky, I noticed how charged the air felt. It was as if someone had sucked the energy out of the atmosphere, and those of us on the ground were expected to simply wait for the show to begin. Eventually it did, so I headed inside before I risked getting zapped. But not before I witnessed this ethereal moment, when the forces of darkness battled the forces of light, and the good guys won, however briefly.

Your turn: Stormwatching. Do tell!

5 comments:

Mojo said...

Being a big (huge) fan of storm photos, this is right up my street.

There's nothing that will humble you quite as quickly as a good thunderstorm. And the show that the really active ones put on is better than any fireworks display ever. Even if you don't manage to capture the lightning (which is almost impossible during daylight hours) a shot like this one is hard to beat for drama. You can imagine all sorts of story lines for the show that unfolds, and it's never exactly the same twice.

No matter how hard we puny humans may try, we'll never make anything this grand. But we have our moments. Here are a couple of those:

Thematic Photographic 84: "White" v.3.0 - It's A Natural Thing

Thematic Photographic 84: "White" v.4.0 - Rule Brittania

Rinkly Rimes said...

We had a storm last night and I aimed for a storm picture but didn't get one. So I'm humbled!

Karen (formerly kcinnova) said...

Fascinating clouds!

Gallow said...

That's a great one. Good job waiting for the right moment.

We were at a baseball game several years ago. I looked around, and people's hair was starting to stand straight up on their head. We canceled the game, and everybody got out of there as soon as possible.

lissa said...

Wow...this one is spectacular! And while I'm not a fan of thunderstorms, the picture is definitely appreciated!