Since the wet monsoon season is winding down here in Arizona, I decided to go out again and take the opportunity to get a couple more captures of lightning strikes before the season is over. At first, I did not plan going out, but driving home from a family dinner I saw some good storm activity over North Scottsdale.
Checking on Southwest Lightning confirmed that it was worthwhile to venture out and try to get some shots. Not wanting to go too far I decided to head north on the Loop 101 and found a spot to shoot from just north of the 101 on Hayden Rd. After getting situated with my tripod and camera I started to click away.While I was concentrating on framing a shot and making sure that I was focused I heard a car pull up near to where I was parked and sure enough there was a guy getting out of his car with a tripod and a camera bag. 
There was no way to ignore each other, especially considering the fact that we both spotted each other’s Nikon gear from the distance. We quickly exchanged “hello” and it turns out that this Nikon shooter is a fellow European, from former Yugoslavia. Ivan told me that he just recently got into photography and picked up a Nikon D40 but is already looking to upgrade to a D90 very soon.
Ivan set up right next to me and started to click along. How cool is it to keep meeting other photographers out in the desert during monsoon? Funny how small the world becomes when there is good storm brewing in the Arizona desert. Not too long ago, we ran into Tony Laubach of Tornados Kick during a Monsoon Storm, August 23rd 2009 at the I-10 and Ave 75 E Exit, east of Quartzsite, Arizona.
I am just surprised that I haven’t run into other local Flickr storm chasers yet…
