Lucky Strike

This is the only time I was happy when everybody else was pissed off.

This is me trying to catch a lightning strike over the TAPPS Executive Director’s head.

I was here as a freelancer. My job was to run the video broadcast of the meet and to photograph whatever I could. It was a lot of going back and forth between the press box and the field. Then the storms rolled in.

We had a lot of bad weather that weekend. Rain slowed us down during setup and turned some of the sand pits into mud traps. Waco even had flooding in a few areas. And this was all the day before the thunderstorm storm.

These images were made inside the south end of the press box. This was the meeting room for the TAPPS staff, facilities managers, and event personnel. TAPPS had their own weatherman on the phone keeping an eye on lightning strikes around the stadium. We held on as long as we could but had to call it off for the night. We packed up around midnight.

Fun Fact: One of these images was selected for the Texas Photographic Society’s 33rd Annual Members' Only Show.

I had snuck down to my car to get my tripod and managed to get in the office against the wall with my 14mm prime and a canon full frame.

The strikes were frequent but irregular. It felt like every time I stopped to check if I had anything I would miss a big one. I kept shooting 5-8 second exposures for about two hours.

This was the view from our broadcast room at the other end of the building as we were packing up to leave. I still hear people talking about how bad that track meet was because of the weather but honestly I had a great time.