July 31, 2011
Lightning Over The Sawtooth Range in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, Idaho

Last night I went out to photograph the Sawtooth Range in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, Idaho, because there was an interesting cloud layer and it had started to develop some color. The color stayed low in the sky right over the peaks instead of lighting up the whole cloud layer. Instead of packing up when the color started to fade, I stayed and started taking long exposures to see if the cloud movement would make an interesting image. The next thing I knew, lightning started over the range and I kept shooting. The image above was created from two four-minute exposures taken one right after the other. The first exposure was slightly underexposed and the second was really underexposed. The second exposure contained the fantastic lightning in the right part of the frame so I wanted to keep it. I combined the two exposures in Photoshop by using the Screen mode on the second exposure to simulate a true multiple exposure shot and ended up with a properly-exposed image. Mt. Regan is on the left and McGowen Peak is the highest point on the right.

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