Abroad Lightning and Storm Photos

I took the lightning pics below near Kuala Belait, a small town in Brunei on the island of Borneo. Whilst thunderstorms in the area occur almost on a daily basis taking a good lightning pic is not easy. High humidity ensures very low cloud bases and heavy rainfall combine to hide majority of the lightning the storms produce. It isn't impossible however as illustrated by the photos below. Spectacular positive strikes, such as that in the first lightning pic below, often travel outside the storms and the low cloud associated with them, whilst intense CC lightning inside the storms often illuminates the entire storm structure.

This photo of anvil crawlers over New Plymouth in New Zealand is my one and only lightning photo taken during winter. Winter is a frustrating time of the year for me as although Perth experiences many winter thunderstorms, the extensive rain and low cloud they normally produce makes lightning photography near impossible. I got lucky on this occasion though as I had a perfect view of the storm from my hotel window, the rain wasn't particularly heavy, and the wind was also coming from a favourable direction!

The following is my first ever lightning photo. I was staying in a small motel in Lafayette, Louisiana, when a storm associated with a strong cold front approached at about midnight. I didn't have a tripod at this stage so lightning photography was always going to be a problem. I ended up pointing the camera at the sky just above the roof line of one of the motel units and walked away with this photo. At the time I was very happy with myself having captured it on film, but knowing what I know now I hate to think what might have happened had the bolt connected with one of the leaders you should be able to spot at the bottom of the photo!