Road trip to the Bay of Plenty in New Zealand.

This weekend was a babysitting job with my Wife for our little Niece and there is always a photo opportunity for me, I have been many many times to the Mount (Mount Maunganui)as the locals call it in the Bay of Plenty New Zealand, I have nearly always failed to get an awesome shot before I go anywhere I check out various social media sites for images and locations and as I know they are quite well as most photographers looking for something unique and different, would this weekend be any different only one way to find out. 

The whispy clouds in the sky an hour before sunset looked very promising as I dropped the family members off at their party and headed to the beach to set up and hope for what was going to be a great sunset. 

Just before sunset of what I was capturing.  

As you can see it's all looking good for a great sunset sky with hues of pink and orange glow a photographer’s dream, Right? 

 Well as the sun began to set there was no drama in the sky no pink, or orange hues in the sky.  

Setting sun at the Mt.  

As the sunset was slightly disappointing I turned around 180 degrees as the clouds where super dramatic in the distance and had slight colour in them.  

Captured at 14mm no filter.  

It began to get dark and I started to pack away and saw the clouds begin to light up, what had started as a lightning storm I tried to capture the lightning by timing the flashes, not being very scientific my theory was a long exposure of 10 seconds from when the lighting started and as soon as it began again stop the exposure, the images that I shot look like bright clouds but I did manage to capture some video footage of it talking place.  

Managed to capture the lightning as the night sky set in.

Well look forward to next time and hopefully capturing the Mt again.