In September of 2025, my work is generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I'm being forced to shut down my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field.
I have collected a large amount of new material on this subject over the past couple of years, but have just now got around to incorporating it into the upward discharges page. Lots of new photos, videos and information are available here.
This has obviously become a 'pet subject' of mine in recent years. There is nothing like getting close to lightning again and again - there is a lot that can be learned from these close observations, and so I plan to do much more with this in coming seasons. I have located a few more towers near Charleston that are prime upward lightning initiation sites, and are ones that allow for much closer vantage points than the WVAH tower. Two of them I can get to within 50-100 feet of the tower base! Also, I think I may have developed a solution to the lens raindrop problem with shooting a tower tip with the camera pointed nearly straight up in the air - more on that later (once I get a prototype built). This should allow me to set up directly beside the tower bases and get the closest shots possible from the ground, less than 1000 feet away (~300 meters) from the discharges (and zoomed in). For comparison, the WVAH shots are at about 2,300 feet distant (1,500-ft tower, set up roughly 1,000-1,200 feet from the base). Ultimately I'd like to get longer lenses to get imagery of channels/leaders on the order of inches scale. The closer, the better!
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From Dan: Please Read
To my regular readers, I offer my apologies for this heavy-handed notice. Unfortunately it has become necessary, so please bear with me!
Please don't copy/upload this site's content to social media or other web sites. Those copies have been a critical problem for me, seriously harming this site and my photography/storm chasing operation by diverting traffic, viewers, engagement and income. "Credit" and "exposure" does not benefit this site or my operation, rather they threaten my ability to cover my operating expenses. Please read my full explanation for this notice here.
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