There are only a couple days a year when I stand behind my camera and laugh out loud at the humor of how awesome what I am witnessing is. On this occasion (6/9/15) I did that, it was that awesome. A storm was approaching and I could see lightning strikes occurring around me – not dangerously close just in visual range. I knew the storm was coming because it was very calm and eerily devoid of birds, deer or other animals. I saw the clouds building all day as a result of the 100 degree heat inland. I certainly did not plan for the colors and textures that occurred but I did have high hopes. After dinner however, I was getting the kids ready for bed and the sky was just dark and patchy grey. This sometimes means that the clouds are so thick that sunset light won’t penetrate and it will just be a ‘fade to black’ kind of night. It wasn't. The image you see here is not Photoshopped, it is one click of the shutter, and no HDR, color correction, saturation or vibrance adjustments were done. I edited from RAW in Lightroom, very minor adjustments for exposure, shadow and clarity. This result is close to how it looked in real life…well close enough, it was better in real life. Nikon D7000, 3sec, 185mm, f/7, ISO100