When I was about 20 I lived in Australia for a year. I hitch-hiked around the entire continent and saw some amazing places.

At one point I was at Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory. It was the wet season. There were the most spectacular storms I have ever seen.

I was staying at back-packers hostels usually whenever I was travelling.

One day I saw a man who was just arriving. He had his camera bag and his tripods and other equipment. So I got talking to him and he had the most interesting job I had ever heard of. He called himself a "Lightning Photographer". He travels all around the world to places during the local wet season specifically to photograph lightning.

I sat and drank a couple of beers with this guy and he started showing me some of his awesome shots. Wow!!!

He had just arrived in Australia and his last port of call was Papua New Guinea. He said that after Australia he was heading to South America.

I remember thinking at the time that this would be the most amazing job. An interesting job! A job that seems so unlikely but it was true, it was a job!

I did lots of travelling over the years and got right into photography. I do all kinds of photography, Milky Way, Landscape, Wildlife, City-life and only the odd try at getting lightning but wasn't really getting the results I wanted.

Then recently I went to the Kruger National Park in South Africa. It was in the wet season and the temperature was in the 40's.

It was a flying visit and we were only there for 24 hours including 1 night.

Then I heard that it would be in the low 40's when we got there and the next day it was supposed to be in the mid 20's. So I thought "hmmm, I wonder if we will get a massive thunderstorm."

There were no storms forecast for that night but I was already making preparations with my camera and settings. I knew it was coming!

We were staying at a lodge in Berg-En-Dal Camp. It was right on the edge of the camp next to the electric fence that keeps the predators out.

As it started to get dark, the sky clouded over and you could hear the distant rumbling of thunder barely audible above the sound of crickets.

I took my camera down to the fence so I could get a clear view of the sky and got ready. I was visited by two or three Hyenas which was amazing but thats another story.

As the storm drew closer it was pitch dark by now. I actually figured out how to capture lightning there and then. I had tried countless times before but never got a good shot.

This time I used the following settings:

The camera is a Canon EOS 6D with a 17-35mm wide angle lens

Manual mode.

ISO 100, F11 aperture. I put White Balance on auto. I set the shutter speed to 20 seconds with a 2 second delay. This eliminated camera shake.

So here is the real trick!

​​I had a 20 second long exposure, so if I leave it for the full to seconds I just get a white blown out, over exposed image. So what I did was to start the shot, pointing towards where the streaks of lightning are mainly coming from. Then as soon as a flash of lightning occurs I quickly cover up the lens... and this was the secret!!

After all that time trying different methods, I found this one was perfect.

I am sure there are other methods out there too but this method can be done by anyone.

So there you have it.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

​​​Danny