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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 - 10:46PM

Lightning in rural Kanawha County

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

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

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.

After returning home from Pittsburgh this morning, I was half 'armchair observing' the Plains today (via my laptop along the side of the road) while shooting lightning in a few pulsing storms north of Charleston. Today's setup in Kansas was what I thought would be the best for tornadoes seen so far this season, and so I was surprised to see it bust so badly. Since I had chosen to sit out the Plains this week (due to faltering travel funds and low confidence in the forecast), it was quite a relief to see that I didn't miss anything.

The HD video camera was all I could use today to catch lightning in the bright daylight conditions. Most of the lightning was too quick for 'reaction'-type shots, so I didn't try for much. A fairly unremarkable outing, except that I got my first rainbow/lightning combo.

Near Big Chimney:

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Near Elkview:

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Arcus forms on the outflow over Big Chimney:

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Scene along a ridgetop road near Big Chimney:

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Finally, this view of the fizzling storms at sunset from Fort Hill. There is actually some lightning in this shot, an intracloud channel faintly visible near the horizon.