Lightning over Monument Hill, Albury

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Lightning over Monument Hill, Albury

[Public Domain] 16 Jan 2006 Dylan O'Donnell
CATEGORY : Notable, Weather
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Something possessed me to get up on hearing the faint rumble of thunder at 3am, put on some shorts and a t-shirt, and drive to east-hill with my camera and tripod. Opening the back doors of my 4wd I setup the tripod looking out over Albury and focussed on the town lights and opened up the aperture. At ISO 200, this lightning bolt took me by surprise and completely overexposed the shot, but the forks were so beautiful, I had to recover the photo with some darkening in post processing. You can see where the bolts are hitting both on Monument Hill itself, and then further in the background to the hills beyond, a spectacular fork that shook the earth.

UPDATE – Thanks to the Border Mail, Australia’s largest regional newspaper, for printing this photo on the front cover, Thursday the 19th 2006.

UPDATE 2 – Peter Jowett of Albury, on seeing the photo, realized the strike had hit his parent’s house. Border Mail article here with a photo of some of the damage.

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