Finally, Rain!

We are in the midst of a drought here in too sunny and too hot Southern Indiana.

It hadn't rained at our house since mid May.

But hallelujah, it rained yesterday!

And it's raining today!

 Rain!

For weeks the radar has been taunting us with storms and rain that have never reached us.

 But this time it did!

 Do you know how difficult it is to capture lightning in a photograph?

The timing has to be just right.

And then you have to adjust the exposure and the brightness afterwards.

Out of 144 photographs, I only got three good shots.

This was taken about midnight.  And it was raining!

Can you tell I'm doing my happy dance?

An Evening at the Indianapolis Scottish Rite

My husband and I attended yet another dinner

at the Scottish Rite in Indy last evening.

This time the dinner was served buffet style.

 I had a mixed mescalin salad with strawberries and a nice,

light vinaigrette, wild rice with barley, asparagus, 

butternut squash souffle, tilapia in a cream sauce,

beef tenderloin with a Merlot sauce, and a roll with butter.

Everything was delicious and perfectly cooked.

I especially liked the wild rice and barley.  

It tasted nutty and had a nice bite to it.

The butternut squash was also very good.

I will have to try making the that fish with cream sauce sometime.

 The dessert was strawberry shortcake.

The shortcake was flaky and not too sweet.

I liked it very much.

We got the chance to reconnect with friends and make new friends.

All in all, it was a nice evening.

And Thomas Caterers of Distinction did a great job as always.

 On the way home we were treated to a light show.

Please note that all of these pictures were taken on my iPhone.

Oh look, all the IU students are heading on a mass exodus

out of B-town now that classes are over for the year.

Buh-bye.

The Results of a Sleepless Night

I had trouble sleeping last night,

so when I heard the storm roll in,

I got up and got my camera ready.

What,

you don't do that?

Lightning streaks across the sky.

I took 68 pictures and ended up with this one good picture.

I had my camera set up on a tripod inside the house

and the camera setting was on night landscape.

Unfortunately,

lightning doesn't warn when it will strike or where,

so all one can do is take multiple pictures and hope for the best.

I adjusted the photo for brightness and contrast

so that the lightning strike would be highlighted.

Lightning Crashes

The first evening we were in Lexington, Kentucky, my husband went out and visited with other Masonic friends staying at the hotel. I took that opportunity to go out on the balcony of our hotel room and practice taking pictures of lightning. Now, have you ever tried to take pictures of lightning? Not an easy thing. First you have to figure out just what setting to put your camera on. Auto with flash? No good. Nighttime with no flash? Not much better. Ah ha, I’ve got it! Fireworks! Now, just where do I point the camera? And just when do I take the picture?

The storms have moved on, so it's relatively safe to go out and take pictures of the lightning.

Lightning is a difficult photographic subject as it is unpredictable both in location and timing. I solved this problem by simply clicking the shutter button as often as I could. The camera must also be held as steady as possible. Ideally, one would have a camera tripod handy. As I didn't, I used the balcony railing to keep the camera steady.

After uploading the pictures to my computer I was left with many duds, which were summarily deleted. Then I had to contend with the pictures that contained bright white blobs.

I used Microsoft’s standard photo software where I played around with the exposure settings, changing both the brightness and contrast settings until the bolt of lightning could be seen.

Still working on it...

A little closer...




And there we have it.

You can even come up with different versions of the same lightning strike, simply by changing the brightness and contrast on the photograph.

See?

I have to say that I now have a much greater appreciation for those wonderful photographs of lightning that are out there.