The Electric Edge - Brooms Island, Maryland
There's a moment before a storm breaks when the world holds its breath. The air thickens. Light shifts. Everything alive knows what's coming.
I was standing on that weathered dock at Brooms Island when I felt it—that electric charge that makes your skin tingle, that primal warning that says move. But there was something else too. A pull. An invitation to witness something raw and beautiful.
Nature's theater was opening, and I had a front-row seat.
Dancing With Danger
The storm clouds were gathering fast, their infrared glow painting the sky in otherworldly reds and silvers—like the heavens had been lit from within. In visible light it was just another angry front rolling in, but through my lens the scene transformed into something stranger and more honest: a living map of heat and force, currents of energy braiding together above the water. The air felt charged, metallic on the tongue, and the wind kept changing its mind—one moment a steady push, the next a sharp shove that made the whole shoreline flinch.
The dock stretched out before me like a bridge between worlds. Weathered wood. Defiant pilings. A pathway leading straight into the tempest. Each plank carried the memory of calmer days—sun-warmed boards, quiet footsteps, the soft creak of ordinary time—but now it pointed into a sky that looked torn open. The pilings stood like sentinels, taking the first blows without complaint, dark silhouettes against that surreal, luminous storm. Out there, the water was no longer a surface; it was a restless mirror, swallowing and throwing back whatever the sky dared to become.
I had seconds. Maybe less. The kind of seconds that don’t behave like normal time—seconds that stretch and tighten, that make you aware of your own breathing, the weight of the camera in your hands, the thin line between intention and hesitation. I checked my footing. Felt the dock tremble under a gust. Watched the light shift again, as if the storm were rewriting the scene in real time. There’s no polite pause in weather like this. No “ready when you are.” Just a brief opening—an invitation—and then it’s gone.
Sometimes the most powerful images emerge when we learn to dance with danger. Not recklessly, not blindly, but with reverence—like stepping into a cathedral where the roof is made of thunder. When we stand at the edge of something bigger than ourselves and say yes to the moment, even when every instinct screams to run. Because that’s where the veil thins: where fear sharpens the senses, where the world stops being background and becomes presence. And if you’re steady enough—if you listen closely enough—you can bring back proof that the unseen is real, and that light has a language most people never get to hear.
The Moment Before
This image almost didn't happen.
I captured it in that breathless space between calm and chaos—seconds before lightning claimed the sky and sent me sprinting back to shore. One click. One moment of perfect alignment between vision, timing, and courage.
The infrared spectrum revealed what was invisible to everyone else on that beach: the storm's true energy, its hidden architecture of light. The crimson foreground—nature's own warning system—glowing against the silver-blue fury above.
It's a reminder that the unseen world is always there, waiting. We just need the right eyes to see it.
For Those Who Stand At The Edge
This piece isn't just about a storm. It's about every moment we've stood at the threshold of something powerful and beautiful. Every time we've felt that electric pull toward the unknown. Every decision to stay when it would be easier to leave.
For anyone who's ever felt the thrill of dancing with danger, of witnessing nature's raw power, of choosing courage over comfort—this image carries that energy.
It's a portal back to that feeling. A reminder that we're alive. That beauty and danger often walk hand in hand. That the most extraordinary moments happen when we're willing to stand defiant against the approaching tempest.