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 suddenly got some inspiration to get back into shooting Van de Graaff generator sparks tonight, after a spontaneous idea on how to contain the discharges into a small area while still giving them enough energy to branch and have vivid main channels. This allows getting the DSLR close to the setup without the risk of it getting hit.
In short, I created a main spark gap by placing my smaller VDG dome about 5 inches from the large generator. This gap produces intense white-hot sparks that are, unfortunately, also straight, branchless and generally featureless. I connected a cable to the smaller dome and suspended it a few inches over a metal plate connected to the ground of the larger generator. Whenever the main spark gap discharges, it simultaneously flashes across the secondary gap I created over the metal plate. The secondary sparks are a good 3 to 4 inches long, and have detailed tourtuous and branching channels. The nice thing is that this is more of a closed circuit, with sparks neatly contained in a small area I can focus a lens on. The big generator can throw solid 16" sparks by itself in random directions, and bringing a camera close to it isn't safe (for the camera, that is).
Simulated miniature skyscrapers with antennas:
8-inch branched sparks between the two generator domes:
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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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