Storm + Lightning Photography

Today’s collection provides some amazing examples of stormy photography which can be very difficult to capture. Lightning is one of the most intense and most extreme moments which require great skill to create an awesome effect and a good picture.
A perfect storm and lightning photograph is one which shows the incredible lighting, enormous shadows and a massive scale of energy. To capture such greatness in a single photograph is not easy at all. Here is a number of breathtaking photographs to inspire you!

Storm + Lightning Photography

Light Show

Extremely Romantic Places to Get Married

If you are planning to get married shortly, are 200% sure of your love, and are ready to overcome hardships together with your partner, this post is for you. We’re going to show you 13 of the most extreme and romantic places to get married! What makes them even more attractive is the fact that most likely your relatives won’t even want to join you on your special occasion. Besides, the cool and unforgettable honeymoon is guaranteed — well, of course if you manage to survive.

1. Inside a cage on a shark reef

Photo by StJenna

Extreme and Beautiful Weather

Majestic Skies Created by Powerful Storms

The good old Nature kept giving the photographers great opportunities for stunning shots. Problem is, great celestial displays are often followed by some nasty storms... which hardly anybody would want to witness firsthand.

We'll start with a "Clouds Beauty Contest". Most sources are listed directly under the photos, though some original credits remain unknown. We mentioned "Clouds Appreciation Society" as a premier destination for cloud-watchers & photographers before, and it remains the "one-stop" website with more and more spectacular submissions every day. Among the other sources of this article, you will see a few examples out of thousands worthy pictures displayed there.

Cloud "Explosions" - Cumulonimbus cloud formations, building up to powerful storms.






(photos credit: Karen Titchener, Cloud Aprreciation Society)


(photo credit: Mike Adkinson)


(image credit: "King Herald" Paul)


(photo credit: Cobalt Osanga)

Crown of Glory:

(photo credit: John Deed)

In this picture both lenticular and mammatus clouds combine in one crazy rippled texture, after the passing of a powerful storm:


(photo credit: Martha Tenney)

A storm front moves over Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station:


((U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Master Sgt. Ray Lloyd))

Clouds with an interesting shapes:

Angel wings -

(original unknown)

This picture was sent to us by Greg Hewgill.
He describes it as a trail left from a missile test:


(photo by Greg Hewgill)

Watching clouds & seeing shapes becomes a theme in the "Amelie" movie:
("Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain") -




It also shows how easy it is to make these shapes by Photoshop. The following series of pictures, though, is definitely real and appeared in Daily Mail. The most unusual ones are "the six-legged sky pig":


(photo by Ian Loxley)

and a "head of the sky dragon":


(photo by Felicity Norman)


Tornados & Wall Clouds

First, the most fantastic picture - the storm structure captured in its entirety, over Red Cloud, Nebraska. The linked page describes the damage that was wreaked by the accompanying tornado.


(image credit: Doug Raflik)

The blackness is palpable in this picture:
(and yes, there is 500-meter wide tornado in there somewhere)


(image credit: Ryan McGinnis)

A wall cloud developing under the anvil of a powerful storm is often a tornado waiting to happen... as seen on these ominous pictures:


(image credit: Colin Morris)

Over Veghel, NoordBrabant, Holland:


(image credit: Roel Kouwenberg)




(original unknown)

Tornados & Rainbows At Once


(image credit: Jurg Beeli, Cloud Aprreciation Society)

We are also reminded by the saying on his site that "It's hard to enjoy the fascination of storm chasing when people are getting hurt" (Alan Moller), so the combination of rainbows and tornadoes is really quite symbolic.

More recent shots of tornadoes, unfortunately uncredited:




(original unknown)


Rachel Rusinski took the following two pictures of Midwest storm looming over the plains in the morning. Right place + right time = amazing photography...




(images credit: Rachel Rusinski)

A couple of particularly spectacular lenticulars:
(or lenticular spectaculars)
Here is the "mother ship" over Lake Tahoe:


(image credit: Bryan Hightower)

Over Nairn in Scotland:


(image credit: Ulrich Brieger)

The winter is coming. Look up to see the dancing northern lights:



Northern lights over the erupting volcano!



The photo above came from the most fascinating collection of northern lights pictures by Sigurour H. Stefnisson. Make sure to click on this link to enjoy their beauty.


Nacreous Clouds

Nacreous Clouds, or Mother-of-Pearl Clouds are a pretty common sight in the northern countries (like the ones shown here over Norway), when the sun is low on the horizon in December and January. They are also called "polar stratospheric clouds". They are best visible in the early dawn of after dusk, because they reflect sunlight from below the horizon (due to their extreme altitude and curvature of the Earth). They also play a certain role in decreasing the ozone layer by bringing up the gaseous nitric acid and disturbing the delicate cycles of the stratosphere.


(image credit: Derrick Rethans)


(image credit: Pvv.org)

Cloud Wave

Finally something rarely seen and truly strange: Cloud's "Gravity Wave".
Time-lapse photography captures a huge rolling huge wave, consisting of smaller clouds. "A gravity wave is... a wave moving through a stable layer of the atmosphere. Think of a rock being thrown into a pond. Ripples or circles migrate from the point the rock hits the water. An up and down motion is created." (Tama, Iowa KCCI-TV webcam on 6 May 2007)

Extreme Car Stunts - A New Urban Sport?

"Those magnificent madmen in their neat Japanese flying cars!"



First, some shock value:
"If you haven't seen a Qashqai Car Stunt - you don't know what adrenaline is."

So first, go watch the videos at this site or the offical QashQai flash site.

Come back amazed, and wonder if this madness is for real, or not. After all, another death-defying urban sport is "sweeping" Europe - "Parkour", or extreme free-running with jumps and Spiderman feats beyond comprehension:


If they can do that, can't they do it with automobiles? It only seems like a logical progression... To drive the car up the half pipe into the air, vaulting over the apartment buildings:





or to drive up the wall of shipping containers, and skid across it, as though it were a lawn:





oh, by the way, there was a similar car stunt in the recent Russian movie "Day Watch", where the girl launches her sports car off a ramp, and drives sideways at top speed along the parabolic side of an enormous glass hotel building:






So what is Qashqai?:
Historically Qashqai is name of a nomadic people, a tribal confederation of clans in Iran. (see Wikipedia entry). Qashqai is also a name of new Nissan mini-SUV car (see it here). Put two and two together, and you'll have to admit that the new "extreme urban sport" is nothing more than a clever (diabolically clever) marketing campaign. It says "Qashqai Car Games are the hottest urban extreme sport today. Motor punks, ex-stunt drivers, and banned Formula One pilots do mad stunts and sick tricks..." It might be only special effects for now, but it certainly has an excitement potential to spark something bigger. (at least Hollywood movie people should take notice and upgrade their car chase yawn-fests a notch)

These madly alluring videos are brought to you by the same people responsible for the "Swedish Traffic Control" idea (see their hilarious video here, or here, this time as "SpeedBandits" in Denmark)

Hmmm, "Qashqai" vaguely sounds like a "Cash Cow" - could it be a hint that more of such hugely entertaining videos are underway?

The Art of Extreme Sleeping

Sweet dreams are only part of the story

Like any extreme activity, it requires the nerves of steel, good choice of timing, location and the absence of suspicious cops. All this however is easier to achieve, because you are, well... asleep, so you can trust the unseen powers to take care of the rest. Long & restful sleep is by no means guaranteed, but perhaps somebody will take your picture and you'll wake up famous.






(original unknown)



Location, Location, Location

The best site to explore (or to learn this useful skill) is Sleeping Chinese. It's a constantly growing collection of impossible sleeping positions:


















(images credit: Sleeping Chinese)

Ignore the crowds

According to this site, Japan's Public Sleeping is a constantly evolving art:


(image credit: Jeff Tsai)













Schools are made for sleeping

Studying obviously leads to extreme mental and physical fatigue:








(original unknown)


Chinese Converted Bus - just for sleeping

Better than an RV, but not quite a dormitory yet.


(photo by Dima Chatrov)


Comrades in Dreams

Russians sleep skillfully, with a total abandon - in all kinds of public transport, but mostly in their subway, because the intervals between the stations are so long and, besides, you can always take the ring line and sleep any amount of hours without interruption.



Don't miss an extreme collection of Russian Subway Sleeping Faces here

The Russians even have a traditional saying:
"The Worker Sleeps, His Job Carries On"




(original unknown)




Sleeping in Airports

An indispensable source of sleeping wisdom for the tired and delayed travelers-in-transition, the site Sleeping in Airports lists and reviews 5147 best-and-worst airports from around the world. This way you can avoid the worst ones, such as the airport of Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea), and learn about the best: Singapore's Changi airport.



Need some privacy? Try sleeping under the chairs.



or come better prepared:




(photo by Martin Leprohon)

They have all manner of advice on the site, and they conclude with a commendable optimism:

"Sleeping in airports is an adventure. Enjoy it! Have fun. From someone who has done it to save money or as a result of a layover, let me tell you that it is fun and it adds an extra element of strangeness to your trip."

One word of caution: be careful while asleep, because you might get "stolen":


(image credit: Christopher)

The second part of untranslated writing allegedly reads: "No Adultery While Your Aunt is Asleep"... what?!


Learn from kids

Of course, children are "professional" sleepers:



They can fall asleep almost anywhere and they always look so cute while at it:


(image credit: Jeri Bailey)

Cats have no competition, though.