July 10th, 2008 William Coyle
I make a habit to look up at the sky whenever I get time and sometimes I see amazing things that most people will miss just because they don’t take the time to look up and admire the beauty that nature has to offer above our heads. Besides weddings and portraits I love what the skies have to offer which could be lightning, sunsets,shooting star or even a rare event of aurora. Somethings are burned in your mind forever like the very first time I saw the Northern Lights in Virginia. I remember the date of November 8, 2004 like it was yesterday as I was watching the data from a solar flare that left the sun two days before the big event. All the info and reports concluded that the lights were visible even further south then Virginia. I drove out to Back Bay past the North Carolina border to a spot that I have used for taking pictures of the stars or for meteor shower events which takes about thirty minute to get to from my location. During the drive I would look to the North and be somewhat disappointed to not see any glimpse of color in the sky. I pulled up to the location, turned the headlights off in the car and stepped out to a jaw dropping display of one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life. This was the first time I have witness the Northern Lights and everything I have read about them took place right in front of my eyes. The colors of orange, yellow, green, and even some blues and purple moved across the black velvet starry sky. I stood there looking and lost my train of thought forgetting that I need to set up the camera to record this event. I took photos for about an hour before the lights started to draw back to the North. I came home to edit the photos sending one to the Virginia Pilot newspaper which was used in a large article on the front page. The response from the photo was overwhelming and I received so many orders for the photo. I remember one that I sold where a couple had a grandfather who died two minutes before the photo was taken. The eleven year solar cycle is on the upward spiral so I look forward to new sun spots and maybe another chance at this type of photography.
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July 6th, 2008 William Coyle
Another round of storms more toward the South kept us out of the heavy rain but not the lightning. This shot was taken last night around 9:30 p.m. in front of the Virginia Beach Town Center.. Sometimes as storms weaken they will produce great anvil crawlers that can stretch for many miles outward from the main part of the storm as these did. The main part of the storms were located in Elizabeth City and further south and west but the lightning in the top of the storm would travel along the blown off tops of the storm call the Anvil. The Anvil has light rain and takes time to build a charge up in the high base of the clouds but when it releases it’s energy some of the most spectacular lightning can happen.
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July 5th, 2008 William Coyle
I had a great forth of July but a better birthday. I spent my forth of July with friends in Chesapeake, Virginia with food beverage and yes no video or photo equipment. I seem to always find myself in this position and I would have thought that I would have learned my lesson after some many times of missing out on great photo ops because of not being prepared. I watched the storms pass me by as I ate a hot dog and talked with friends. We left and started home from Chesapeake and again I was kicking myself for not having my equipment with me as I saw upward lightning shooting from the top of the Westin at the town center with very vivid main bolts and many little leaders following it in an upward motion. If most don’t know this has been one of my goals this year to get photos of this and a lot of things have to come together to get this sort of lightning to happen. I made it home at 12:30am and made a mad dash for the house to get my gear and head to the other side of the lake to set up. By now I have told myself that the show was over but set up anyhow. By the fourth frame I saw an anvil crawler start from the West and move to the East towards The Westin at the town center and close the connection in the sky to the ground with one of the largest tower type lightning strikes I have seen since I have chase storms. The lightning was so intense that an f-stop of 5.6 was way to low for this strike and to tell you the truth I think for this strike I needed to be a f-16 or f-18 to keep the bolt from over loading the sensor. My goal has been achieved but I still want a better shot then this so I will keep on trying to get the perfect shot of the Virginia Town Center getting hit by lightning. Here is the photo from last night.
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July 2nd, 2008 William Coyle
I found a little time this evening to take Madison out by the lake and make my best effort to shoot a few snapshots of her. Taking photos of her is somewhat of a challenge for a couple of reasons, one is she will not stand still for a minute like most five year olds and the other is if she is posing then her natural smile and facial expressions are what I would call fake looking. I managed to get a few shots of her when she was not looking and came inside to do some post processing. The first photo I worked on I turned into black and white and added some contrast and a few other things and my wife and I sat for 10 minutes looking at it and saying to our self how this photo made her look much older then she is and how fast she is growing up. I wish I could keep her at this fun age. I have heard it some many times before from my parents and other relatives of how fast I was growing up and how big I was getting when I was young but I think when you’re a parent it takes on a whole new different meaning.
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June 29th, 2008 William Coyle
These storms rolled in on June 18, 2008 and lasted into the morning of the 19th. I need to stop using this spot so much because I like to change my foreground as much as I can but most of the photogenic storms have rolled over the Chesapeake Bay leaving me only a couple of options and this one is the closest to the couple of setup spots I have. I also had time to roll my HD camera on this one so the Sony FX1 did a fine job catching some High Def lightning. I have a little time before my next wedding and this leaves me some down time to fix some stuff around the house and maybe a little time to shoot some new photos of my daughter Madison so look for those as well. PS, yes that is someone fishing in the photo with a metal pole in the air…
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