In a number of practical combustion devices, short duration, high-energy sparks are used to ignite combustible gases in high velocity, turbulent flows. Under these conditions, the high energies are required to ensure reliable ignition. However, the majority of research in spark ignition has focused on lower energy sparks, often in quiescent gases. This work describes measurements of the evolution of high energy spark kernels in flows of air, and premixed fuel and air. A short duration (hundreds of nanoseconds) discharge across two opposed-rod electrodes produces the kernel, with a deposited energy of 0.25 J. The evolution of the spark kernel is characterized with a combination of high-speed schlieren and emission imaging. The ignition process is characterized with the optical emissions (e.g., OH chemiluminescence) recorded by a spectrometer and time-gated ICCD camera.