Storm Over Arches

We had another killer thunderstorm roll through the other night. This time I drove up to Arches with the intent of photographing lightning crashing around Balanced Rock. Instead, I got this photo of lightning surrounding Balanced Rock with a wicked, forked bolt. I cropped it to a pano as I was in such a hurry to get out the door that I left my 100-400mm lens behind and had to shoot this at 105mm. Lots of empty sky above BR that needed to be cropped!

Thanks for having a look and leaving a comment.

1Ds MKII, 24-105mm lens

Really cool, Bret. Being prepared paid off... nice work!

Very cool, Bret! The lightning around the Balanced Rock is amazing! You were really lucky to see and capture that. Great one! I can see that on the wall.

Nice work Bret! Storms see to be everywhere these days.

This is spectacular!!! Thanks for posting.

Impressive. It helps knowing you are near a paved road during these little squals.

Great shot! I really like the comp and the colors.

What's up with all the lightning shots? I need to get out of the house. The fork coming down around Balanced Rock... amazing! Great work getting that to happen!

Really nice Brett, I think the pano format really works for it. It would be cool as a tight vertical centering on balanced rock had you brought your long ger lense, but I think showing the whole scene works better. Good choice cropping the extraneous sky. The tight cropping adds dramatic effect by locking the action into the middle third zone. Very nice!

Thanks for the comments, folks. After 2 weeks of nightly storms all is calm around here. The temperatures have cooled a bit, which is very nice as I was quickly tiring of the 110 degree heat.