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Sunday, July 26, 2009 - 5:45AM

Lightning over the New River Gorge Bridge

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

From Dan: How the crime of copyright infringement took $1 million from me and brought down my business.

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. This page is a detailed account of the biggest threat to my photography and video operation that I had to battle daily to just barely survive, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem facing all of my colleagues as well.

A prayer for success was answered tonight. A large complex of thunderstorms moved across southern West Virginia overnight - a perfect setup for a run up to the bridge for a few hours. The last time I was here for a storm was back on July 19, 2003.

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Lightning to the south front-lights the bridge and the Gorge:

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There is no light at all down in the Gorge - a problem, since my DSLR lenses don't have a hard stop for manual infinity focus. I had to drive my truck across the river, then walk back across and use the taillights for focusing points. Thankfully, it worked. The Fort Hill portable camera shelter also made this possible in the midst of heavy rain. You can see the water streaming out of the drainage system under the bridge in a couple of these.