Fixed Price Image Gallery A.T. Willett Lightning Gallery

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Who are the Lightningsmiths, Lightning Photographers?
 


Tucson Lightning Photographers Jeff Smith and Tom Willett atop Tucson's "A" Mountain Shooting a storm blowing into town in 2002
Jeff Smith and Tom Willett met in a Pima Community College Photojournalism class in 1981. A solid foundation in creating high quality photographs with a personal meaning developed with the help of instructors Louis Carlos Bernal and Jeffery Muir Hamilton. Our photographic interests have followed very similar pathways to each other although our journeys have been different. Our great teachers in life have taught us much more than just how to create great images, they have taught us how to reach out and connect with others using our hearts and our cameras. Whether we are out shooting lightning, learning some new way to capture an image, discovering a new photographic process, or just sitting around talking about the Japanese Machine Gun Camera we should have bought a long time ago, our friendship has grown over the last 20 years.

Maybe it was the intensity of the Monsoon Lightning storms or the danger of trying to photograph 40,000 Volts of electricity leaping through the sky, but a few years after Pima, both young photographers became interested in lightning photography. We began to realize it was better to chase as a team, at least one of us would see that huge bolt when the other one was looking down at his camera or loading a roll of film in the car. You would think we would run into problems shooting at the same time, but our pictures are always different, even if our tripods were perched on the very same ledge. When we give up on a dying storm it is time to play the lightning chasers game "Who will put away their camera first". One of us gets the great shot just as soon as the other puts the lens cap over their lens. As long as one of us gets the great shot, we both will have something to look at when we pick up our film from the lab.

A night of lightning photography always starts with a phone call an hour before the sun has set on the Western sky, I would call up Jeff and ask, "What’s it going to be tonight Lightning Smith?" I guess we figured if we added an "S", Lightningsmiths would describe a friendship that has lasted over 20 years.
 
Link To Jeff Smith's Biography Page
Link to Jeff Smith's Fine Art Print Page
Link to Jeff Smiths's Lightning Page

Email: Jeff@lightningsmiths.com

Link to Tom Willett's Biography page
Link to Tom Willett's Fine Art Print Page
Link to Tom Willett's Lightning Page

 

Email: tom@lightningsmiths.com