Welcome to Lightning Focus — a photo-blog where the raw power of nature takes centre stage. I’m an amateur photographer based in New South Wales, Australia, and since 2012, I’ve been chasing and capturing the electrifying drama of thunderstorms. ⚡
By night, I’m also an avid astronomer, drawn to the wonders of the Universe. But here on Earth, few sights rival the spectacle of lightning splitting the sky — a fleeting moment of beauty and force that I strive to preserve through the lens.
Every image is a real moment from the storm which captures much more than the eye could see — and I’ll be sharing them all right here.
This blog is a personal project, dedicated solely to lightning photography — a niche within a niche. I don’t expect crowds, so thanks for stopping by. I’m glad you’ve found your way here.
When viewing a gallery, click on any image to see a full-size image. ⚡
Links
| Cosmic Focus | My other passion is Astro-imaging. |
| @Ggreybeard | My personal wisdom in 280 characters or less. |
| Flickr | My photographic gallery. |
| Citizen Science | When my computer idles, it works on science projects. |
Copyright
Yes
You may direct link to any of my pages or images, provided that they are attributed and not taken out of context. Your courtesy advice via my contact page would be appreciated.
No
You may not alter the appearance of my images and you may not copy or reproduce my images or posts by any method or media without my written permission. If I subsequently give permission, it will be subject to attribution appearing with the photograph.
All images © R.Powell ⚡
Disclosures
- My images may be improved using standard post-processing procedures: cropping, colour enhancement and brightness/contrast control techniques using Photoshop or Gimp software.
- Some images contain multiple strikes which may not have occurred simultaneously: (a) if two or more strikes occurred during a single long exposure frame (e.g. 30 seconds); or (b) if in post-processing I occasionally decide to stack several images into one single frame.
- With regards to Artificial Intelligence, I will never post images created by AI and offer them as one of my genuine photographs.
- In January 2024, I purchased a copy of Topaz AI image enhancement software. The purpose is mostly to remove noise but potentially also to sharpen the image. I tested Topaz on my entire stock of lightning shots to date (232 images) and found that in most cases overall quality was improved. However I also noted that when zooming in on the lightning detail, that the software sometimes made undesirable changes. My policy is to treat each image on its merits but to retain the enhancements made by Topaz if the overall advantages outweigh the less conspicuous disadvantages. The images up to 2023-12-13 remain unchanged on this site but Topaz may be used on later images.
LIGHTNING FOCUS ⚡
Lightning Focus ⚡ 