The beautiful Mount Hood at sunrise

I was wide awake yesterday morning at 6AM so I decided to go out and watch/shoot the sunrise. We're so blessed to live in a gorgeous area of the country where there are amazing mountain views everywhere! I drove 10 minutes south to Parkdale and took these photos from a random dirt road in the foothills.
The sunrise had some seriously intense colors!

This first shot is a 30 second exposure shot right when the first rays of sun were striking the mountain top. The long exposure saturates and warms up the colors, and also makes the clouds look kinda dreamy. :)

30 minutes later and the color temperature totally changes!

A backed out view of the gorgeous valley and Mount Hood.

Mount Hood has been in the news a lot recently because of new emerging details in the 2006 climbing tragedy that 3 men died in. I'm not sure what the new developments are... but I think 2 of the bodies are still missing up there.
I just watched this video and read this article, interesting but sad stuff! One of the guys' wife said about Mount Hood “A lot of people see this big beautiful thing, I can’t help but just see a beast.”
That is crazy, I can't imagine losing a loved one on the mountain and having such a negative view of it.
Anyway... mega rabbit trail... 4:38AM... time for bed.

"Outsourced" the Movie

Bethany and I just watched a DVD called "Outsourced" about a guy from Seattle who has to go to India for work and deals with all the cultural differences. So so so funny, especially if you've been to India you'll laugh the entire way through. If you haven't been to India before, you'll just wonder what the heck they're taking about the whole time.
We laughed so hard at this part about Holi festival. The clip below is exactly what happens, but it's toned down in the movie... at least toned down from what we experienced in Kathmandu, Nepal.


And here is what we looked like after just a few minutes in the streets of Kathmandu, Nepal on Holi day.

Rangefinder Magazine Cover and Feature Article

Check out Novembers issue of Rangefinder Magazine... I have the cover photo, and they also did a feature on me for the first ever "young guns" issue. Sweet!

Jennifer Chen, Associate Editor, says:

"Brooks graduate Blaine Franger is a daring photographer who takes the mundane— like streets and trees—and transforms it into extraordinary captures. His image of groomsmen jumping in exuberance against a screaming yellow wall exudes off-kilter charm, only enhanced by the fact that the wall is the side of a muffler shop. Take a moment and look at the world of photography through the eyes of the next generation."

A PDF of the feature is available HERE
The printed magazine is shipping out this week. It is distributed to industry professionals and camera stores all around the world, but I don't think it's available on newsstands.

Here is the front page of the Rangefinder website-


Lastly, I've been working with a couple talented web designers to totally re-do my BlaineFranger.com website which is embarrassingly outdated... We put up a new splash page today and we're hoping the new website will be done within 3-4 weeks!

Let me know what you think about the article! Is anyone going to actually bother reading it!? :)

My mentor groups photos

Recently I started being a "mentor" for a local school in Hood River, so a couple times a month I get 1 hour with 4 dudes to do whatever we want. First week we just chilled at a restaurant and talked, this week I decided to bring my arsenal of cameras & lenses to give them photography lessons.
I gave them some inspiration with a slideshow on my laptop and showed them that photography doesn't always have to look like Deb's special portraits-


It was so cool to show them photos of long exposures, star trails, streaking lights, bugs... and watch their eyes light up just like mine did when I first started in photography. That was really my "big moment of realization" when I realized that photography didn't have to be just a click and the photo is done. I explained that as long as the light is low, you can open the shutter for long periods of time and the possibilities are endless with what you can do!
I was stoked to see them get stoked and want to go outside to take some photos for the first time ever with a SLR camera.
The photos they took were interesting... lets just say we've got some stuff to work on... but we'll get there! :)

Here are a few pics of theirs-












I even demonstrated chucking the camera in the air, and spinnys with a group :)

400th post!

This is my 400th post to my blog... I started this blog back in June 2005, seems like a long time ago!

Not much to say right now... except that I can never get enough of this beautiful mountain we have in our backyard. Its raining and kinda cold right now in Hood River so that means snow on Mount Hood! Woohooo!

Eventful day for my mail!

Fall has officialy set in... ugggg.

2008 Starvation Ridge 24 hour race (Part 2)

Yesterday's post on the Starvation Ridge 24 hour race was my most popular post ever, it was circulated all over a bunch of different forums on the internet which is cool... glad everyone is enjoying the pics! A lot of folks wanted to see more images, especially the riders who were at the race who I think want to get lucky and find an image of themselves, haha.

So here is the second edit of the photos I picked as my favorites. I don't think these images are quite as good as the first round, but I'll let you decide.

Note this post is part 2 of my photos, click here for part 1!

No captions or descriptions this time because I need to sleep now!

Note this post is part 2 of my photos, click here for part 1!

2008 Starvation Ridge 24 hour race!

This weekend I headed out to Goldendale, WA for the annual Starvation Ridge 24 hour Dirt Bike race. This was my first time out there and I was impressed! So much fun. Basically they build a totally custom 22 mile race course in an area of about 800 acres (the middle of nowhere). The course has everything from slow rocky areas to straights where your pinned at 90 MPH, canyons, gulches, ponds, hill climbs, whoops, 180 degree turns, track through barns... you get the idea. One lap took the average rider about an hour!

I was going to compete but to race at night (teams race for 24 hours straight) you need to have big lights on your bike and they are quite the investment, so I'm waiting until next year to make that plunge.
So instead of racing I signed up to be a sweep rider which is cool because I got to ride the course much as I wanted and I got to help out a lot of riders. One guy I found crashed really bad on his bike and ended up getting life-flighted out to a hospital. I helped lots of other riders get their broken down bikes back to the pits, and helped a guy at night find his way back to the pits when all his lights went down and he was stranded in the pitch black night. Not fun for him!

I managed to take a lot of photos too... almost 2,000! I just had a chance to edit though some so here are 28 of my favorties... hopefully I'll have time to post more later!

Note this post is part 1 of my photos, click here for part 2!

Sunrise on Mt. Hood as I was driving out there in the wee hours of the morning-

The starting lineup-

A nice moment when a dad is saying bye to his girls- :)

I climbed on top of someones RV for this shot of the start-

And their off!!

One of the checkpoint trailers and a volunteer looking pretty bored-

Racing shots-

The track went through this barn, it was a tight fit for the bikes but some guys hauled through there!

This was in the evening right after sunset. The wind had died down and there was SO MUCH DUST the riders could barely see especially on this straightaway-

Some sunset action-

6 minute long exposure with bikes buzzing all over the course. It was a really cool site to see this... hundreds of bikes racing all at once in such a huge area.

Another zoomed in long exposure of the bikes buzzing around and going through the barn-

Sunrise on Sunday morning, a long exposure of a racer taking a turn with Mt. Adams in the background.

Sunrise action-

This was a bit of a hillclimb and the dirt was soooo soft, it was literally the texture of flour! Made for some nice shots of roosts (dirtbikers term for dirt spitting out from the back tire)

Showing off for my camera... I like that. :)

A couple straightaway shots before I packed up my camera and did some riding myself!

Can't wait for next year!

Note this post is part 1 of my photos, click here for part 2!

A view from White Salmon

Bethany and I were exploring around a little bit yesterday on the Washington side trying to find a certain hike, we couldn't find it so we preceded to check out some real estate on the bluff with the most INCREDIBLE views... of course WAY out of our price range! But wow, even though living over there isn't quite as desirable, if you had a place on the cliff overlooking the Gorge, Hood River, and Mt. Hood, I think that would make up for it. The views are some of the most gorgeous I have ever seen, anywhere!

I didn't take any photos from up on the cliff but did take this one on the way home down by the White Salmon River. The time of day is about 1 hour after sunset when it's basically dark out and you have to do long exposures to record anything. Believe it or not, the sky above the Mount Hood looked black but I could tell there was still a hint of color that could be captured. I did a 2 minute exposure and it's amazing what the camera can capture that your eye doesn't see.

What you see is Mt. Hood towering over the Westside of Hood River, Columbia River separating Oregon & Washington, and I'm standing on the bank of the White Salmon river which flows right into the Columbia. The little bridge is for trains and cars to cruise right over the White Salmon river.

I don't get it

Who actually buys stuff from places like Best Buy and Circuit City??? The only reason to ever buy anything from those places is if you need something immediately and you have a store near you. I've noticed that Best Buy's prices are CONSISTENTLY 50% higher than any other online or retail competitor, FOR THE EXACT SAME THING. So why buy from there unless you have money to burn and could care less!?

Today I needed to order two 1 terabyte hard drives (seems to be a monthly occurrence these days) so I spent a few minutes shopping around online and found that as usual, frys.com had the best price and even free shipping on Seagate Freeagent Pro 1TB drives. Prices at 160 bucks, 320 for two. Not bad. Cruise on over to BestBuy.com and they are a whopping $350 EACH!! WOW... what a price difference! I paid 30 bucks less for twice the amount, and free shipping. It just amazes me that anyone buys anything at Best Buy...

Or take a Canon EOS 5D camera. Great price at Amazon.com- $2,000
Or, buy it from Best Buy for a whopping $1,300 more at $3,300 (same price the camera was introduced at in 2005!!)

I just don't get it. Do you?

frys-

best buy-

campfire with bethany

Today was so gorgeous in Hood River, sunny and high 60's! It kinda felt like a bonus day of nice weather because it's already getting cold, especially at night. Bethany and I are catching up on lots of work so the day was spent inside the office, but around sunset time I talked Bethany into hopping on my motorcycle and cruising up some dirt roads to take in a nice warm sunset. The sunset wasn't spectacular but the magic hour light afterward sure was!
I built a little campfire for something to do and we both sat there and poked it with sticks for a good hour or two. It's funny how campfires are so amusing and anyone can stare blankly at it for hours and never get bored.
I shot a few photos with the self timer of us two and my beautiful dirt bike. Kinda looks like a Honda Ad eh?

Another moonrise

I went out and photographed the moonrise again last night, it's pretty rare when the moon rises and the sun sets at within an hour of each other so I'm trying to take advantage of the opportunity to shoot the sunset light with the light from the rising moon. If done right you can get some amazing photos.
Last night there was some could cover so I didn't get many direct views of the moon, but still shot what I could.
I rode my dirtbike up into the Post Canyon Hills to get some nice views over the city. Anyone want to go camping with me up here soon before it gets too cold? There is an incredible clearing at the top of a hill with a perfect little campfire ring, plenty of room to set up tents, and views of Mt Hood, Mt Adams, and Mt St. Helens!

Moon behind the clouds just as it was rising-

Few moments later it came out a bit more-

A 2 minute exposure looking out over the Hood River Valley-

Full moon over the Columbia River

I've taken so many photos from this spot, especially on full moon nights. These were shot last night. I'm usually always alone when I take photos up there so thanks for the company Bethany and Amos. BTW this is the first time ever that I've blogged pics before Amos. He's fast!

We got on the topic of cougars because there have been a couple sightings up there recently and Amos posted a quote from Bethany on his twittter that I thought was pretty funny "If i was a cougar i'd eat me too." - beth

Here's a few pics I took-

For this one I didn't enlarge the moon at all, but I did join two exposures because to get detail in the moon and hillside thats what you gotta do. :)

Wide angle view of the Columbia Gorge River looking east. Washington on the left and Oregon on the right. :)

Zoomed into the taillights on Interstate 84.

Another dirtbike ride at Gifford Pinchot, Mt. Adams

Wednesday I went riding with Rob Wymore who founded Real Wind in Hood River. The ride was incredible... the weather couldn't have been more perfect and the trails were in good shape. Rob is an amazing rider, he goes multiple times per week by himself and rides like 100 miles of singletrack trails in just a few hours. Riding with Rob I was pretty beat by mile 50 or so, but I definitely want to build up some endurance skills so all in all we rode something like 120 miles, I think 95 of it was on singletrack trails. It's Sunday now and I'm still sore, haha.

I brought my camera again and spent a few minutes taking photos but I had to be quick because we had lots of ground to cover. I want to get back up here again soon just to shoot photos though!

Mt. Adams with a fresh layer of snow:

Jumbo rock-

Mt Adams in the distance-

My mom loves this photo except for the dirtbike-

Rob cruising around so I could grab a few photos-

This was pretty scary, going down this icy hill I lost balance and almost went over a pretty large cliff. Luckily my bike balanced right on the edge and I had a little ledge to land on... that was way too close for comfort! I would have survived just fine but I'm not sure how the bike would have held up.

Mt Adams poking out of the clouds at Sunset-

Gifford Pinchot, Mt. Adams - Dirtbike ride

Sunday was an incredible day! I went on an all day dirtbike adventure with Jerry Justus. At almost 70 years old Jerry is in incredible shape and more active and healthy than anyone I've ever seen at that age. I believe he's been riding motorcycles all his life... so his knowledge and experience with them is just phenomenal! Jerry has been super kind to teach me a few of his tricks and share some advice, which I've appreciated soo much. This is only the second ride I've done with him but I look forward to many many more. As he said on Sunday- "I don't plan on stopping anytime soon"

We started at 8:30AM when we loaded my bike onto the trailer and headed across the Hood River bridge to Underwood Washington where we picked up Jerry's long time friend Nik. It was my first time meeting Nik but it didn't take long to realize Jerry has great friends because Nik was super nice and fun to talk with. Small world story- Turns out Nik is a retired photographer and when I asked if he had heard of Brooks Institute of Photography he's like- "I graduated from there in the 70's!" (or maybe 60's?? I can't remember)
So Nik and I had a lot to talk about when it came to photography and techy stuff of course, haha.

This was my first time riding the Gifford Pinchot National Forest area so I was glad to have someone in charge like Jerry who knows the trails really well. I would have been lost within minutes by myself!
I think all in all we went either about 45 miles or 75... I know it's a big difference but I can't remember which one!

Anyway enough talking. I brought my Canon 5D along with my 24-105mm lens in my backpack so here are a few photos I took along the way. Sorry no action pics... haven't figured out how to make that happen yet. Riding while taking photos is impossible.

Driving up with the bikes in back

Jerry sharing some awesome dirtbike stories while driving

Our parking spot

First part of the trail you ride through thick forest and then come out to a clearing with this incredible view of Mt. Adams

Quite a few riders up on top. I was definitely the minority having a Honda bike. KTM's seem to be the most popular for this kind of riding!

My "new" 2005 Honda CRF450X... only my second ride on it!

Jerry checking out the map during a lunch break. I forgot to pack a sandwich so Jerry was nice to give me a granola bar.

A few gorgeous views of Mt Adams. There are amazing trails all throughout those trees!

Jerry and Nik checking out the map during lunch.

Since Jerry and Nik were in charge of the map I picked yummy huckleberries while they were navigating the route. :)

A really huge cliff that the trail passes right by. See Jerry and Nik?

Lots of trees!

Nothing better than a fresh huckleberry shake after a looong day's ride! You can get these from a little sandwich shop that's located at the Trout Lake Chevron station. MMMM

These next 3 photos are the view from Nik's beautiful house on the bluff of Underwood, Washington. All I can say is WOW. I told Nik and his wife if I had a view like that I'd never leave home. They agreed it's hard to ever leave it. Mt Hood is towering above the Hood River Valley looking directly South, with of course the Columbia River dividing Oregon and Washington states.

Mt Hood and the west side of Hood River

This last pic shows a boat pulling a water skier, it was so quiet up there I could hear the boat cruising on by. Paradise! It's a new personal goal to own a piece of property up there before I die... Just if I had a million or two burning a hole in my pocket, haha. :)

Can't wait for the next ride Jerry and Nik... thanks!!

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately! We've been keeping super busy catching up after shooting 11 weddings in the past 8 weeks!

But you can also blame my lack of posting on my newest purchase, a 2005 Honda CRF450X. It's quite an amazing bike!
I rode 70 something miles in the Mt. Adams wilderness yesterday with a couple dirtbike friends. Amazing time! I'll blog more later... for now here is a pic of my new friend!

Gotta run we're off to hike on this beautiful day in Hood River!

About time Canon!

It's finally announced... the Canon 5d MarkII!

This camera was over 2 years overdue... and while I've been super happy with my 5D's for a long time, they are getting old and tired. The new 5D will be a welcome addition to my arsenal of cameras. :)

Some awesome new features:
-21.1 Megapixel sensor (full frame of course)
-ISO 50 through 25,600!
-Full HD Video and sound capture at 1920 x 1080 resolution for up to 4GB per clip
-Live View Function (silent mode shooting in Live View)
-RAW and SRAW1 (10 MP) / SRAW2 (5 MP) (awesome for weddings)

Somewhat disappointing:
-3.9 frames per second capability. This camera should be faster, no doubt!
-Same old 9 point autofocus system (slow)

At only $2,700 this camera is an amazing deal. The original 5D was $3,300 when it first hit the market!

The reviewers are saying this camera will have the finest and most detailed files of any consumer/professional camera to date, including the 1Ds Mark III which costs $8,000! The reason being the updated DIGIC IV image processor along with the 21.1 megapixels which is same as the 1Ds Mark III.

My biggest complaint: They don't shipping until end of November!

Read more here


Also announced was the Canon 24mm f/1.4 L II USM lens (version 2)
I've been wanting to buy this lens for a long time... glad I didn't buy the version 1 right before this one came out. I think I'll pick one up now!
Read more here

I can't imagine using the 5D MarkII @ ISO 25,600 with a f/1.4 lens... thats got awesomeness written all over it.

Save $15 on Lightroom 2 update!

For all you photographers using Adobe Lightroom, you probably know that the Version 2 beta recently expired so you're forced to either pay 100 bucks to upgrade or use Version 1.
I got quite used to using the Version 2 beta myself so didn't really have a choice whether to upgrade or not. I logged onto the Adobe website to pay $100 to get my new version 2 serial number and noticed the "Promotion Code" box. Whenever I see one of these I visit a super sweet website called Retailmenot.com. Retail Me Not has saved me hundreds of dollars on online purchases by finding random coupon codes, it's so cool!
Anyway I was doubtful there would be a coupon code for the Lightroom upgrade because it's so in demand, but sure enough there was! Save 15% on the upgrade which is like 15 bucks. It's so simple, just thought I'd share and try to save you 15 bucks!
Check it out!

The new Canon 5D!?

Canon has been taking FOREVER to update their 5D model... and just about every Canon shooter is getting super sick of it because as of right now Nikon has some better Pro/Midrange cameras out like the new D90 that shoots in HD video too (super cool).

But recently everyone is talking about this "Destined Evolution" teaser that Canon released on their website(s).
Check it out here- http://www.canon.com/moon/en/
Also here and here

What does this mean!? I personally think it's going to be the 2 years overdue replacement of the 5D and it's going to blow away everything Nikon has put on the market and will put on the market. Just my thoughts... :)

Whatever it is... can't wait to get my hands on it!

A fun day caving on 8-29-08

A fun group of friends/family went for a little adventure last Friday out at the Ice Caves near Trout Lake, Washington. Holly had a hand drawn map of some secret "undiscovered" caves that nobody knows about. We surprisingly actually found them after tramping around in the woods for a while. The caves went back super far! We walked in one lave tube cave for a good 45 minutes before we came to the end. At some points we were on our hands and knees squeezing through because they got small and tight. Good times.

I took only 2 photos with my Canon 5d, the rest are digimon snapshots.



Holly took her caving seriously... one piece suit and everything.

Me hunkered in one of the small sections.

Amos chillin

Me chillin

Lindsey and Bethany getting through a small section


Afterward we had a campfire in my parents backyard complete with hot dogs, chips, and schmores!

My brother Colin dominating some greasy chips (interesting beard eh?)


I love lots of ketchup & mustard on my dog


Amos also blogged about the adventure here

Now better tasting!

I bought 2 boxes of Post "Banana Nut Crunch" and noticed this when I got back home. "Now Better Tasting!"

What's up with that? Does the box on the right really taste worse? And what did they add to the cereal in hopes of making it taste better!? (probably more sugar!)

Random thought of the day...

Dominican Republic Time Lapse

One night on our recent Dominican Republic trip I stayed out late and shot some night photos with the full moon out. The clouds above the water were moving so much I had the idea to do shoot this time lapse. Kinda forgot about it until we spent 10 hours of flight time from Punta Cana to Newark to Portland. I played around with the images in photoshop and did 4 different versions of the original version (seen first). Ya it's pretty trippy and acid trip-ish but I made it under the influence of nothing but pure bordeom. :)

Dominican Republic Time Lapse from blaine franger on Vimeo.

and the winner is...

Number 2! I was dead set on #1 but Bethany was set on #2, and thats what triggered this whole post. I'm a sucker for clouds too (like many) but I hated the "not enough action" feeling of the shot. So, with all the input, #2 seems like a better choice.

Thanks everyone for soo much help on that. :) That kind of feedback was so nice! I sent in all 12 images last night and now they want 10 more! Back to the drawing board!

Here is the final version with some adjustments that I sent in:

For anyone curious, this is Jon Schwartz (Blue Water Jon) who is a total pro at kayak fishing. He's got a website, video, and lots of crazy stuff! Check out his website here.

I need your help!

A couple months ago I was contacted by Rangefinder Magazine and they are doing a feature on my photography for the "young guns" issue. I've never been featured like this before, so it's really exciting. The interview and article is all finished but now I'm trying to pick a group of 12 images that shows what I do. 12 images!? OUT OF 12 MILLION! Haha. It's quite hard to narrow down, to say the least. Thanks to Bethany she has laid down the smack and just picked a bunch of images for me...
So, we've mostly narrowed them down but I need your help asap on this one!

These 3 images were obviously shot at the same time, of the same subject, but they are quite different at the same time. Which one works the best for you? You can share why if you want, but if not, just say 1, 2, or 3! (from the left of course)

PS- You don't need a blogger account to leave a comment, just say anonymous or type in your name

Thanks!!!

click to see it full size

continental airlines

Continental airlines has to be one of the worst out there right now... I won't even get into what they dished out to us on our last trip to NY (canceled flights for no apparent reason, canceling one of our tickets, putting us on different flights, wanting $1,500 to get things back as they were, etc). But with all that put aside and trying to forget about it, check out what they served up today. A smashed up crusty hard bread chicken sandwich with a side of 3 pieces of (canned) pineapple. Wow. I'm really not a picky person and I honestly try to see the best in every situation, but this was pretty bad. Anyway I hate ranting about anything on my blog so I'll try and find something nice to talk about now. :)

To our Hood River Friends / Family

Can anyone pick up our 2 fat cracks (see below) at the PDX airport tomorrow at 10AM??? My mom was going to do it but she had to take a last minute trip to San Diego.
Continental flight 584 from Newark, NJ lands at 9:44AM. Let me know with a comment, email, or phone!

Blaine's first introduction to dominican republic beaches...

was handfuls of topless women and men in the tightest smallest speedos you hoped didn't ever exist in this world.

Example:
(although I'm not sure if there is actually a speedo in there somewhere!)

Off to Dominican Republic!

We're leaving in a few minutes and will be out of the office for the next week to shoot a wedding in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic! Should be a good time! :)

Here is a pic of the all inclusive resort we're staying in! :)

40 lbs of fresh picked fruit!

Are berries considered a fruit? I never thought about it until now. Anyway. Yesterday Bethany, Bethany's mom (out visiting from Michigan), and I spent a good portion of the day picking raspberries, cherries, blueberries, and blackberries. YumYumYumYum. All in all we probably ended up with over 40 pounds of fruit, costing a total of $10.00. Only thing we had to pay for was the blueberries, they were $1.25/lb at a little organic blueberry farm (more like someones backyard) in Parkdale. Cherries and Rasberries were compliments of our wonderful friends Mike and Jackie at the Mt. Hood Bed & Breakfast. The blackberries are a weed around here in Oregon and they grow everywhere, and take over everything! People hate them, but man, their berries are wonderful.

A sampling of the pickings (there was more behind me):

And a few of the yummy deliciousness I've made so far:
Blackberry shake! (blackberries, vanilla ice cream, ice for texture, milk, soy milk, and a touch of my moms homemade blackberry jam)

Blackberry pancakes!

Smoothies! Blackberry, peach (also picked recently), Banana, ice, milk, homemade apple cider (also compliments of Mt. Hood Bed & Breakfast), flax seed.

Guess I liked the fruit so much I had have a photo with it?

What is your favorite of these 4? Raspberries, Cherries, Blueberries, or Blackberries????

Lightning in Hood River is always welcomed by Blaine

Late last night shortly after we got back from Portland we had the sweetest lightning storm that passed through Hood River! I LOVE lightning more than anything (well, a lot of things at least) and we don't get nearly enough of it here on the west coast.
I hopped on my dirtbike and headed up to the hills around our house... seconds after driving away quite possibly the brightest and loudest crack of lighting I've ever seen/heard went off, it had to be just feet away from us! Then it started to rain and hail in tropical size proportions... insane! I got seriously wet and had to take cover under trees (with the lightning going off all around, smart eh?) during the peak of the storm. Within 10 minutes it had passed right by and the stars were out. If my motorcycle was street legal I would have followed it East.
I ended up only getting one decent shot, but the experience was all worth it!

Check out lightning photos from last year here!

Taken from the