Lightning, Rainbows and Luck

Children play as a rainbow arcs across the sky after a thunderstorm before the high school football game between McGuinness and Douglass at Bishop McGuinness Catholic High School in Oklahoma City, Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010. Photo by Nate Billings, The Oklahoman ORG XMIT: KOD

After a brief storm in Oklahoma City on Thursday night, Nate Billings and I ended up with interesting pictures of the rainbow that appeared on the east side of the city. Nate was assigned to photograph a football game at Bishop McGuinness High School and ended up with the best rainbow picture of the night (above). I ended up with the least likely lightning picture, technically speaking. I got back to the office after photographing a memorial service in Oklahoma City when the rainbow appeared. With no good foreground like Nate had, I thought I’d click a few pictures of the rainbow and show them to my daughter when I got home. I had my camera set at 1/320 of a second, at f 3.5, 160 ISO. I clicked one frame and suddenly saw lightning. When I looked at the LCD screen on the back of the camera, I was glad to see that I’d captured the lightning and the rainbow in my second frame.

Lightning cracks near a rainbow that stretches over the Northeast side of Oklahoma City on Thursday, September 2, 2010. Photo by John Clanton, The Oklahoman

-John Clanton