There were thunderstorms in the area last night, the first rain we’ve had here in more than a month. Of course, it never actually rained at my house — but we could still see a good amount of lightning.

I had the brilliant idea to go out and take pictures of the lightning. We covered night photography in one of my classes and I thought it was a good chance to see what I could do. What I figured out pretty quickly is that suburbia is not that great a backdrop. There was so much light from houses and streetlights that the sky wasn’t really dark at all. I tried anyway but the results were disappointing.

Not to be outdone, I decided to move from the backyard to the front yard. This was a great idea, since there are four streetlights visible from my house — including one in my own yard. What to do, what to do. I decided to try painting with light, something else covered by my class but never before attempted.

I ran back in the house and asked Honey if he’d put on some shoes and come help me. Understand that it was already after 10, he was sitting in the couch in flannel PJ pants and trying to read a book. And here I was, trying to drag him outside (of course, he also was certain we were going to get rained on any minute). Lucky for me, he decided to be a good sport and give me a hand.

It took a little while for us to get in the groove of this technique, but once we did we couldn’t wait to try something different and see how it turned out. Our best photos were taken of our neighbor’s ivy-covered mailbox and a wooden fence the surrounds a culvert across the street. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.