Mountain Thunder

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.

Lightning from Kanawha Baptist Temple church mountain, Big Chimney, WV. View is looking south (toward Charleston) on Monday, September 7, 1998 (Labor Day)

I thought storm season was over by this time of year. Boy I was wrong. I saw an enormous storm approaching on radar and drove to a place I had always wanted to shoot from- At Big Chimney, WV (about 6 miles north of Charleston) at the top of the mountain where the Kanawha Baptist Temple church overlooks the Elk River. From the church parking lot, there is a breathtaking view of the valley below toward the west. I was hoping to be able to set up facing that way, possibly getting a lightning flash with the scenic view. However, the storm's gust front followed by torrential rains blowing in hard from the - you guessed it - west prevented me from setting up facing the valley.

After giving up and driving around some more, I ended back up on top of the hill and set up facing south, where a smaller cell was putting on a show. I was out of the rain, so I set up the tripod on the hood of the car and captured these flashes, which are my first-ever photos taken during the month of September.