Last night I took an impromptu trip to check out the Chiba Port Tower with my daughter. It’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and in Japan that means lots of humidity, heat, and otherwise fatigue inducing weather. As a photographer, that’s not especially inspiring to go out and shoot, but it has been several weeks at least since I really went out just to shoot last, so I figured a nice indoor observatory would be a good way to do some more shooting.
While the Chiba Port Tower doesn’t have especially amazing views, particularly during the summer when viewing distance is significantly decreased, but I’m glad we went because we got treated to quite a show. Off in the distance, maybe 20 or 30 miles away (I’m awful at guessing distances, so don’t take my word for it), summer storms were lighting up the night sky. While we couldn’t see most of the actual lightning bolts, we could see the strikes blasting light throughout the massive clouds. Thankfully I had my 70-300mm zoom lens on me so I could shoot the storms, and even more thankfully the tower allows the use of tripods, without which this shot would have been impossible.
