lightning encore
Lightning in the Encore, 2008
An oldie but a goodie. The night this was taken, I was peering out of my window (I did this a lot when I lived downtown) at the storms blowing through. Suddenly a couple of fire engines came tearing down the streets headed for the Encore building, which was newly completed but not open yet. They flanked each side of the building and started doing their thing — including raising the ladders on each truck to the side of the building. I wasn’t sure if there was a bomb threat or a hostage situation, or a localized fire on an upper floor or what.
Naturally, I grabbed my camera. Because that’s what photographers do during tragedies, apparently: they set up a tripod and kick back. So I had my camera all setup and I was just taking longer exposures to see if I could capture anything — and it ended up being lightning reflected in the front moving in behind me. Goes to show that you never really know what you’re gonna get.
I found out later that this was actually a test drill. Any time that there’s a new high-rise building, the fire department deploys their trucks and raises the ladders to make sure they know how high the ladders will reach from various points around the building. Pretty cool.
I love this!
Slayla
3 Dec 10 at 10:40 am
What Chris meant to say was, “I saw clouds building up from the west and thought to myself, if I carefully set up this photo, I will be able to capture a stunning photograph that will appear tomorrow on the front page of the Tennessean. Grabbing my tri-pod and a special high-speed lens I’d had hand-ground by monks living in a cave in Switzerland, I carefully arranged my equipment, including a wireless shutter triggering and aperture control device calibrated to both the light and audio intensity of the on-coming storm…
Rex Hammock
3 Dec 10 at 11:36 am
Right, that .. uh.. that’s what I meant
Chris
3 Dec 10 at 11:37 am
I left out the part about how the building was on fire, but you bravely joined the firemen in saving all of the baby kittens there.
Rex Hammock
3 Dec 10 at 11:57 am