Consolation Capture

I had hoped to get shots of night lightning in a towering cumulonimbus cloud on the night of Thursday, July 22, 2010. Our team was playing in a sandpit volleyball game several miles from home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and I was without my tripod. By the time I got home from the game, lower level clouds had moved in obscuring the cumulonimbus cloud, preventing me from capturing the shots I wanted from this location. At this time the western sky began to clear showing off a brilliant planet Venus, allowing me a "consolation" shot at 10:00 PM. Despite the fact that the storm clouds were moving swiftly away from us to our north--canceling severe thunderstorm watches--several counties in eastern Iowa, including this one, were still under a tornado watch. This photo was a six-second time exposure at f/6.3 with an ISO rating of 200.