June in Illinois often brings with it some interesting weather, and this year was no different. One evening for about an hour we were surrounded by storms, but with clear sky overhead. There was a great deal of lightning, and I even saw one spider-web bolt jump from cloud to cloud, across the clear sky and the face of the moon. Very cool.

I decided to do a photography experiment. I made my best guesses on focus, ISO, aperture and shutter speed, then spent about 45 minutes trying to anticipate the most active part of the sky to point the camera at. With the camera hand-held and set on continuous burst mode, I fired off 1300 frames, hoping for the best. Really. 1300 frames.

Of those 1300, only about 40 had any hint of light in them at all, and just a couple were shots that I consider good enough to show. I’m very happy with these results, but thank goodness for the digital age, as this experiment would have cost a fortune in film!