Pilings Light Show - Behind the Shot

March 16, 2025

March 16th, 2025

"Pilings Light Show" has been one of my most popular and well received works in 2025, so I thought I would share more behind what it took to get the final image I really wanted to achieve.

Florida's Rainy Season

Florida Summers bring lots of much needed rain to replenish our groundwater, slow wildfires, and water our plants/food. These Summer storms also bring along lots of lightning, making Florida the lightning capital of the United States.

Vision

From 2019-2020 I spent about 40 nights at these old pilings, which used to be the original Naples Pier location from back in 1888. Typically I do not publish man-made objects, however "Pilings Light Show" was one of my exceptions because of the message I wanted to convey with my work.

Message

My goal with "Pilings Light Show" was to convey nature's strength and to be a reminder that even though man has come far in with technology, mother natures has her own plans.

The Process, preparation, and tools

In preparation of my process for this image, I had to watch the weather and lightning radars every afternoon and if there was any chance of storms being over the gulf around the Naples Pilings, then I would start driving to location and be there before sunset. Once on location, I would setup my tripod and point to where the lightning bolts might be moving next, set up my focus and start my intervalometer. I would use the Lightning Pro iphone app to send me notifications where lightning strikes were so I can try and stay out of harm's way. Luckily a lot of these storms move slowly and typically move from over land, out East over the Gulf of Mexico which helps a little bit when figuring out which direction the lightning bolts may be moving to next. Luckily there is a parking lot to take cover in nearby, so I would run to my car if another section of the storm was still over land, heading out to sea. Sometimes I would need to go check my camera and lens to see if it needed to be wiped down once the rain stopped and double check my focus.

Compositions

I tried about 3 different compositions with the pilings throughout my first dozen or so nights photographing, where I would usually line up where I thought the next potential bolts would be. I decided that having an image of the old pilings up the middle with lighting directly across, and off to one side was what I was going for. I also wanted lightning bolts somewhere between 4 and 10 miles off shore so I could have some nice cloud depth, ideally 5-7 miles offshore so that I could still get some more width to the lightning bolts.

Feelings

The feeling of sitting on the beach and watching one of natures greatest light shows is almost second to none. This image to me was an energizing and enjoyable part of my long exposure journey as a photographer... at least until one night where a single anomaly bolt of lightning hit nearby me which caused me to be slightly dazed while I started to run towards my car in case more lightning bolts were coming. To this day, Pilings Light Show was one of the riskiest photos I have taken throughout my photographic journey. I will always remember the calmness of seeing lightning bolts over the Gulf and the thunder that followed.

Photo Gear and EXIF.

"Pilings Light Show" is a long exposure image was shot with a Nikon D850 (46MP) and a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens on a tripod, with a Lenscoat rain sleeve to protect my equipment. The image was taken at f/11, ISO 64, and a 10 second shutter speed taken at 30mm.

Early Digital Version

In 2021 I minted an early edit of "Pilings Light Show" as a digital collectable (NFT) on the Ethereum Blockchain with 10 total editions created.

URL Link: https://opensea.io/item/ethereum/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/61388369343041840821240560365995321325052672404780121964962146523366285115402

Lightning Warning

*PLEASE be careful when outdoors during thunderstorms. Lightning can travel miles before striking the ground.

Typical Cloud-to-Ground Lightning: Can travel 5-10 miles (8-16 km) from the storm.
"Bolts from the Blue": These rare lightning bolts originate in the anvil of a thunderstorm and can strike as far as 25 miles (40 km) away from the storm.
Positive Lightning: A powerful type of lightning that can travel even farther than standard negative strikes, sometimes exceeding 30 miles (48 km) from the storm.
Because of this, it's possible to be struck by lightning even when the sky above you appears clear.

Always follow the 30-30 rule: If you hear thunder within 30 seconds of seeing lightning, take cover and wait at least 30 minutes after the last thunder before going outside.