• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Stormhour

Stormhour

StormHour's mission is to promote meteorology & weather photography & provide a platform & resource for amateurs & professionals alike.

  • Home
    • Meteorologists
    • Photographers
    • Contact
  • Photo Comp
  • News

Stephen Cheatley

1 December 2018 by Mark Boardman

cheatley_stephen_electric_blackpool_2018_Weather_Photo_of_the_year_1728x

Stephen Cheatley is judging this week’s competition.
Stephen recently won the Weather Photographer of the Year 2018 competition organised by The Royal Meteorological Society in association with Accuweather.

You can find out more about Stephen and see many more fantastic images on his photography website, or you can follow him on Twitter. – Also, read the story behind his winning photograph below!

 

How to enter the StormHour photo competition and win 12 months free membership to The Royal Meteorological Society plus their Welcome Pack (subject to availability during to the corona-virus crisis)
The competition is run in conjunction with The Royal Meteorological Society who are kindly offering 12 months free membership to the society plus their welcome pack and Tote bag:

  • One image per Tweet
  • Send Tweet as “My entry to @RMetS #StormHour #POTW competition:” followed by your photograph and a brief description
  • Feel free to add a couple of descriptive or location hashtags

    For Example:

My entry to @RMetS #StormHour #POTW competition: #Frosty morning at the #Macclesfield Canal in January

 

I’d never captured a photograph of lightning before the night of July 4th 2015. In fact, thunderstorms are so rare in Blackpool that I won’t have had many chances anyway. We maybe get two storms a year if we are lucky, even those could be very brief.

It was a Friday, and I remember hearing of possible thunderstorms developing during the night. We already had a spectacular thunderstorm earlier in the week, which I tried in vain to photograph. I was determined this time to go out and see if I could get a picture of lightning strikes.
I chose to go to Blackpool promenade with the idea of capturing lightning with an interesting foreground.

It wasn’t long before I was capturing spectacular forked lightning strikes over the Irish Sea. Then I noticed a particularly intense storm moving inland from the west. It was then that I decided to compose an image of the pier and the Tower, with the hope that I may be lucky enough to catch some strikes above them. I chose a shutter speed of 5 seconds with an aperture of f5.6 at ISO 200 because this gave a suitable exposure of the foreground. It didn’t take long before I was capturing the most incredible lightning strikes right where I wanted them. When I captured the image of multiple forked lightning I knew I had the shot of a lifetime. After going home and sharing my image on Social Media it went viral the next day.

This is certainly my most memorable weather event.

I would really like to live in Florida because thunderstorms are so common there. I’m sure I would get many chances to photograph storms, and it’s pretty warm too! I’m not sure if I would enjoy the hurricanes though.

News,  Photographers Featured Photographers,  Photographers

About Mark Boardman

Primary Sidebar

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Recent Posts

  • Human Written Content Providers.
  • Member’s Spotlight ~ Pauline Brock
  • Member’s Spotlight ~ Judith Morris
  • Member’s Spotlight ~ Signalas
  • November 2022 Photo of the Month Competition

Footer

Get Social

Follow StormHour social feeds.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Photo of the Month

  • weather photo 500pixelsNovember 2022 Photo of the Month Competition
  • October 2022 Photo of the Month Competition
  • September 2022 Photo of the Month Competition
  • August 2022 Photo of the Month Competition

Featured Meteorologists

  • Andrew AdamsFeatured Meteorologist Andrew Adams
  • Jed ChristophFeatured Meteorologist Jed Christoph
  • Kirsty-McCabeFeatured Meteorologist Kirsty McCabe
  • Matt HoenigFeatured Meteorologist Matt Hoenig

Archives

Newsletter

Stay up to date by subscribing to our newsletter.

Contact

Useful Links

  • News
  • Latest Entries
  • Photography
  • Contact
  • Enter The Weather Photo Comp
  • Meteorologists
  • Photographers

© 2023 Stormhour · Web Design by Fuze Digital