A spark of light....

What's your favorite part of a fireworks display?? Anybody like the end the best? You know, where they throw everything they have left and you get bombarded with explosion after explosion, one right on top of another?

Those of us living in the general area of Ft. Collins that noticed (must of been REALLY busy if you missed it) were treated to just such a light show. Even though it was only a monochromatic (yes, Virginia, I know big words) show, it was definitely a much larger display - at least from my vantage point.


Imagine being a celebrity standing in front a huge paparazzi crowd, Flashes going off everywhere you look. The sky lit up all over the place, but never at the same time. I'm struggling to find the words that describe what I watched last night. Left, right, up down, in front on the side, behind me (you can tell when they hit behind you, the houses you're looking at suddenly get bright).


And it rarely hit the ground. Most of the time I saw the sky go bright as lightning struck between clouds somewhere in the distance, and sometimes I got lucky enough to see fingers of lightning flicker in the clouds right in front of me.


Ran and got my camera, tripod and remote trigger and tried to capture what I was experiencing. It's hard to capture and show how dynamic the light show was. And cause the show was all around me, I kept running from the back of the house to the front. Kept thinking the really GREAT lightning strike was happening at the window I wasn't.


Finally figured out that most of the exciting stuff was happening to the north, and settled down in my bedroom to watch the show. Kept ripping off image after image. Tried different shutter speeds to see if there was a "best" setting to get great images. Seems there isn't. Or, at least, not that you can count on. I settled on 15-20 second exposures, and that seemed to be the best all around.

The end of a fireworks show lasts only a few minutes at best, right? THIS show went out for over an hour! And during the entire time that I was watching, there were only 2 strikes that hit the ground - at least, that I could see from my vantage point. The first image in this series is one, and..... TA DAH!!!!!!! My best shot....


The other thing that amazed me is how fast clouds grew, joined, separated, and basically morphed into different shapes.

The only time I've seen clouds move and shape that fast was the day the tornado hit Windsor... THOSE clouds were booking!!!