Fiery Nature !!

This picture was taken in Fairfax (Virginia, USA),  during hurricane Isaac in August, 2012.

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I always wanted to capture the fiery side of Mother Nature, and this Hurricane which turned to almost a highest level of Tropical Storm when it reached my place, gave me a perfect opportunity to do that.

I was driving and just 10 miles (15 minutes) away from reaching home, when the wind started to blow at a scary speed of around 40 mph. I thought this will be an OK drive and should not cause any trouble, but within next couple of minutes rain started. Still I thought that it should be an easy drive to reach home, but mother nature had other plans and the rain started getting worse and worse and in no time it was so bad that nothing was visible beyond 20 feet.

At this point I was still 6 miles (10) minutes away from home. I thought it might take twice the time to reach home (20 minutes) because visibility was bad and my car was literally not stable at such high wind. I remember telling my friend sitting beside me, that I was glad to see the traffic lights were still working fine. The very next moment I saw all the street lights go off, and in the next 10 seconds the traffic lights were out too.

I thought that it was still fine and did not worry about driving. I hardly drove another mile (this took like 10 minutes) when I saw a small branch falling from a tree right in front of my car (around 5 feet in front of me). The very next moment, I heard a big sound and I was clueless as to what had happened. My friend pointed out that a big tree fell behind my car. Thankfully, it fell exactly between my car and the car behind me. (I said to myself that it's a good practice that people in USA keep lots of space between the cars, especially in bad weather).

By now I had started praying to God and wanted to reach home safely without any problem (funny to think back, that we remember God only when we are in trouble). Also, I should mention that lightning was amazing and thundering was very very loud. Many of my friends were scared but I was somehow feeling happy and was excited. I did not know why ?

I did reach home safely after all of the tough driving. After reaching home, the first thing I did was to get my camera bag out and assemble my camera and sit in front of the window to capture the lightning (I wanted to do this so badly for more than a year). As soon as I sat in front of the window, power at my house went out and the entire neighborhood was pitch black.

Saw the first lightning through my camera, and it made everything so bright, that I could see everything clearly even at a far distance. I loved the scene, but unfortunately nothing was captured in my camera. I was disappointed to have missed the golden opportunity that I had.

I kept staring at the sky and tried at every opportunity to capture lightning for the next 2 hours. Finally at the end of 2 hours, I was able to get 2 shots which I liked and made the wait totally worth it.

I can never forget that night and probably the next 5 days when the whole city, state and 3 neighboring states were without power. It was tough to live in the following week after we lost power, but all that hardship was nothing compared to the happiness of capturing the lightning.

I will cherish this photo for the rest of my life.