Photo

Flash Photography

Shooting an electrical storm isn't easy—but one photographer has it down to a science.
  • This image may contain Nature Outdoors Thunderstorm Storm and Lightning
    Jason Weingart
    01
    Lightning travels at speeds of up to 200 million miles per hour. It comes, quite literally, in a flash and often disappears before you can reach for your camera.\ \ **Weston, Missouri**
  • Jason Weingart
    02
    That makes it hard to photograph unless you’re a pro like Jason Weingart. He's mastered the art of shooting lightning while tailing storms in more than a dozen states, from Texas to Wyoming. "If it's flashing, I'm on it," he says.\ \ **Monument Valley, Arizona**
  • Jason Weingart
    03
    He snapped his first lightning photo at Daytona Beach, in 2009. He hadn't planned it—the lightning bolt just shot into the frame—but he was hooked. "I became addicted and put everything else to the side," he says.\ \ **Safford, Arizona**
  • Jason Weingart
    04
    Thousands of storms later, he's nailed down his technique. He and his partner in chasing and life, Savannah Weingart, hit the road from their home in Austin every spring to track storms and shoot photos.\ \ **US-Mexico border**
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  • Jason Weingart
    05
    Usually by the time the couple arrives, lightning is already cracking across the sky. "I've had my hair stand on end on a couple of occasions," Weingart says. “It means you're standing in a charged area, which is the first step to having a lightning strike initiate.”\ \ **Riviera Beach, Florida**
  • Jason Weingart
    06
    He mounts his Canon 6D on a tripod, shooting as the storm rolls towards him. When it's broad daylight, he hooks his camera up to a lightning trigger that trips the shutter when it senses a flash. In lower light, he relies on an intervalometer that activates a sequence of photos.\ \ **Benson, Arizona**
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  • Jason Weingart
    07
    Weingart takes long exposures, sometimes keeping the shutter open more than 10 seconds to capture a lightning bolt's entire zigzagging trajectory. Later in Photoshop, he tweaks the images, stacking up as many as 200 from the same location to show multiple lightning flashes over time.\ \ **Bruceville-Eddy, Texas**
  • Jason Weingart
    08
    Weingart can't really explain why he does it, but his photographs do the talking. They're awesome in the truest sense of the word, capturing the dangerous power and beauty of lightning so you don't have to.\ \ **Brenham, Texas**
Laura Mallonee is a writer for WIRED covering photography.
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