I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a technical photographer. I don't know what half of the buttons on my camera do, I think I've just been blessed with a decent eye and I'm stubbornly patient when I sense a great photo is near. But when the lightning storm rolled in last week I felt unprepared. I've never photographed lightning before, and even though I know there are some fancy techniques that utilize tripods, long exposures, and stitching multiple photos together, I didn't feel confident with my abilities in that regard. So I just stood out in the storm, camera in hand, and waited for my moment. I imagine it was just dumb luck, but regardless, I walked away with a handful of lightning shots. Crazy to think that this bolt may very well have caused one of the wildfires still burning today. Such destruction from such beauty.

​"The reason lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place is that the same place isn't there the second time."
-Willie Tyler

I think we all can agree that 2020 has been a crazy year. And to add to it, Northern California got hit with a super strange summer storm, in which back-to-back days we experienced insane thunder and lightning. While the thunder terrified pets and the lightning started wildfires, at the very least it did offer some really incredible photo opportunities. Instead of focusing on the bad parts, I'm accepting them and celebrating the good.

​"Reality is created by the mind, we can change our reality by changing our mind."
-Plato

I’ve spent the last few days with family in the Lassen area. From a photography standpoint, I particularly love this area because, if I’m really lucky, I’ll get to photograph a bear or an eagle or a river otter. And if I don’t, I’m still surrounded by beautiful landscapes just begging for me to take their photo. Blessed either way. 

​"There are only two ways to live your life. One is though nothing is a miracle. The other is though everything is a miracle."
-Albert Einstein ​

When I took this photo, I didn't realize that there was a small bird perched on the branch above the eagle. In fact, I didn't realize it until I started editing the photo days later. While I know some eagles do kill and eat other birds, these two seem to have a pretty clear understanding. 

​"How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul."
-Frances Hodgson Burnett