Lightning Lady

It's no secret I like to work with pictures. In fact, I spend time when I could be writing playing in Photoshop, and by "playing" I mean working diligently to produce a piece of artwork that inspires me. Many truly great artists exist out there and a simple Google image search can produce amazing results with only a few key words.

Lightning was crying out to me for a particular piece I was working on. We live in a unique place near the Blue Ridge Parkway. Some nights when a storm is raging on the far side of the mountains, unable to hop over and pound us as well, we in the Valley are treated to a starry night above and a lightning show along the ridge. It can be quite a sight. I wish I had the equipment to capture some of what we see.

Working on images for the forthcoming Wicked Bag of Suspense Tales I wanted to make lightning a component in a thus-far undisclosed piece. The results of my search were amazing! I mean, just google "lightning" and you'll see what I mean. Tons of sites with tons of images, of course. Where do you start?

One site I found and couldn't seem to leave until I had looked at every single shot was LightningLady.com. Check out her work. Amazing stuff. Had our timing worked out better, I may have been able to use her work as a component in the image for Wicked Bag. Sadly I had to move on before we touched bases with one another. Very nice lady, Ms. Susan Strom. And that name too. Strom? Anyone else seeing Storm, besides me?

The image for Wicked Bag turned out rather nicely in the end, after some work with one of the many, many tutorial on how to make lightning with Photoshop (one here).

And just for fun, a wee disambiguation. The Lightning Lady mentioned above should in no way be confused with the Lightning Lady shown here. Kindest regards and bountiful attributions to artist Karine Charlebois.