Dramatic storms are a highlight of Arizona’s summer monsoon, especially for landscape photographers — and I’ve been fortunate to photograph several displays of clouds, rain and lightning in and around the Grand Canyon over the years. Most of the time, I haven’t felt too threatened by lightning strikes. But the time when I made this photo, during a visit to the rim of Marble Canyon, was an exception.
I parked my car near the canyon’s rim and started walking toward an overlook. Normally, on trips such as this, I attach my camera to my tripod, collapse the tripod and walk with the whole apparatus while looking for appealing compositions. That way, when I find one I like, I can quickly deploy the tripod and start shooting.
I reached a good shooting location and started tightening one of the tripod’s legs, but then I heard a loud, distinct buzzing. I thought the camera was malfunctioning, but I checked it and it seemed to be working fine. The buzzing returned as I was tightening the second leg; again, I couldn’t find anything wrong with the camera.
Finally, as I tightened the final leg of the tripod, I heard the buzzing again, but this time, it was very loud — and accompanied by the hair on my head feeling like it was standing on end. I realized an electrical charge in the air was interacting with the electronics in the camera, which could have meant a lightning strike was imminent.
I immediately pulled my camera down, got into a deep squat to make myself as low as possible, and duck-walked a quarter-mile back to my car. Thankfully, I made it there and was able to wait for the storm to move down the canyon; during that time, I saw several lightning strikes below the rim, which made me feel even luckier for being safe in the car.
After about 20 minutes, I got out, made sure there was no more buzzing and started shooting what I saw. This photo was one of the results — and in addition to being an interesting look at an Arizona monsoon storm, it’s a reminder of a feeling I hope to avoid in the future.