In the Blink of an Eye
By Jeff Moffitt
@moffittjc (129650)
Gainesville, Florida
July 26, 2026 11:19am CST
Yesterday, I posted about rainbows at Disney World, and how there seems to be one just about every time it rains nearby when I visit the theme park.
Today's discussion is about the same rainbow as in the photo from yesterday's post, but with a twist!
I am sometimes not the greatest photographer when it comes to capturing a good picture, or the right lighting, or the perfect angle. So, many times when I take pictures with my iPhone, I will hold down the shutter button so that it will rapidly take 4-5 photos over a split second. I do this in the hopes that I'll get a great photo out of at least one of them.
Well, in this case, in less than a blink of an eye, while photographing the rainbow, in the very last photo I managed to catch a bolt of lighting forming right next to the rainbow! Can you see it? The bright flash just to the left of the rainbow is where the lightning formed, and then from there shot to the ground, off to the left and to the right of the photo. If you look closely to the right of the picture, you can see a thin sliver of lightning. This joined up with the bright flash in the middle of the photo.
How cool is that? I could have never in a million years captured a flash of lightning if I was actually trying to photograph lightning! This one happened completely by accident.
Sometimes we can get a perfect picture when we're not even trying to get a perfect picture!
13 people like this
12 responses
@DaddyEvil (178231)
• United States
27 Jul
That is beautiful!
Sometimes I do that with my Android phone just to make sure nobody blinked while I was taking the photo.
Years and years ago, while I was still a teenager, one of my brothers and his three sons were standing in the front yard with a herd of cattle behind them in the neighbor's field, I was taking the family picture when a bolt of lightning hit one of the cows. My brother was trying to line up my nephew's hands so they were holding cows in the picture. One of the kids was actually holding the cow that got barbecued!
I'd show you the photo but that's one my first wife wouldn't give me when we got divorced. She threw away several photo albums after I divorced her instead of giving them back to me.
3 people like this
@DaddyEvil (178231)
• United States
28 Jul
@moffittjc I know... I wish I still had that photo. It really was interesting to see the lightning strike.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (129650)
• Gainesville, Florida
29 Jul
@DaddyEvil Next time you take an award-winning photo, don't let anyone else have it or take it!
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (129650)
• Gainesville, Florida
27 Jul
Whoa, aside from a cow dying, that must have been awesome to see! And you captured it on camera. Too bad you couldn’t have kept the photo.
2 people like this
@Ineeddentures (46504)
•
26 Jul
That is an awesome picture mon Ami.
I have not yet figured out how to make my phone camera do bursts like that
And I have only had this phone for 4 and a half years.
Actually, that's about as good as it gets unless you got a phone which could do more photos in the same burst
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (129650)
• Gainesville, Florida
27 Jul
My son likes to record a few minutes of video instead of taking pictures, then he goes back later and plays the video and then takes screen shots of the parts he wants to keep as photos.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (129650)
• Gainesville, Florida
29 Jul
@Ineeddentures I think he is able to slow it down frame by frame. I'm not entirely sure, as it's not something I've ever tried. But it does seem like a good idea though.
1 person likes this
@Ineeddentures (46504)
•
27 Jul
@moffittjc
Seems like a good idea as well
Can he slow it down and play it frame by frame
1 person likes this
@FourWalls (87630)
• United States
28 Jul
That is absolutely amazing. Congratulations on such a beautiful and unique photo!
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (129650)
• Gainesville, Florida
28 Jul
Thanks! The one thing that could have made it better is if the rainbow was much brighter.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (129650)
• Gainesville, Florida
28 Jul
Thanks, I thought so too! I only wish the rainbow was a lot brighter!
1 person likes this
@lovebuglena (53418)
• Staten Island, New York
27 Jul
Wow! I didn’t even know there could a rainbow and lightening at the same time.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (129650)
• Gainesville, Florida
28 Jul
@lovebuglena I don't mind the thunder as much as the bolt strike itself.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (129650)
• Gainesville, Florida
27 Jul
It was really weird seeing the bolt materialize out of thin air right next to the rainbow. I thought the strike was super close, but by the delay in the time it took us to hear the thunder, we could tell it was miles and miles away.
1 person likes this
@lovebuglena (53418)
• Staten Island, New York
27 Jul
@moffittjc I do not like the thunder…
1 person likes this
@Deepizzaguy (125181)
• Lake Charles, Louisiana
27 Jul
That is true that getting a perfect picture of lightning and a rainbow is amazing.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (129650)
• Gainesville, Florida
27 Jul
I got lucky! I’ll never be able to get a shot like that again if I tried!
2 people like this
@snowy22315 (212788)
• United States
26 Jul
Pretty cool..not sure I have seen one like that before.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (129650)
• Gainesville, Florida
27 Jul
I could be wrong—or have fuzzy memory—but I don’t ever remember seeing a rainbow and a bolt of lightning together.
@moffittjc (129650)
• Gainesville, Florida
27 Jul
I was on the top deck of the ferry boat when I took that picture! I did head down to the lower level right after I snapped the photos.
1 person likes this
@wolfgirl569 (140311)
• Marion, Ohio
26 Jul
That is a great shot. I will have to try that trick
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (129650)
• Gainesville, Florida
27 Jul
Just don’t get yourself struck by lightning doing it!
1 person likes this
@RasmaSandra (100746)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
26 Jul
I hate thunderstorms. We had one this afternoon and the thunder was so loud it really shook me up,
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (129650)
• Gainesville, Florida
27 Jul
I love thunderstorms, but I don’t like when the lightning is crashing down right on top of me! I like it much better when it is off in the distance.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (129650)
• Gainesville, Florida
28 Jul
Thanks! I'm not a good photographer by any means, but sometimes I get lucky.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (129650)
• Gainesville, Florida
27 Jul
Yes, I agree. Sometimes the best photos turn out to be the ones you weren’t planning on.
1 person likes this
