Photographer Rolf Maeder captured many lightning strikes striking the Grand Canyon under extremely

stormy sky by using long exposures.

A chance can occasionally appear completely out of the blue. Maeder and two pals traveled from Sedona

to the Grand Canyon on August 30 in order to capture the sunset.

Maeder clarifies:

We quickly realized that the extremely foggy light prevented us from seeing what we were after. We made

the decision to head back to Sedona to check out a few additional vantage points.

On Moran Point, we observed that a lighting storm was developing in the distance. We started putting our

tripods in place and starting taking shots because that was far more than we had anticipated. Nikon D800,

24mm lens, f/8, ISO 400, and a 25-second exposure were used to get the image with the two lightning strike

s at 9 p.m. It was possible to get two lightning strikes in one picture thanks to the long exposure!

Rolf Maeder / Rex Features via AP

Over a mile deep, up to 18 miles wide, and 277 miles long, the Grand Canyon is a natural wonder. As they

carve their channels through layer after layer of rock, the Colorado River and its tributaries have exposed

over two billion years of Earth’s geological history. These images were captured from Moran Point on the

South Rim of the canyon (7160 feet above sea level).