Pics: Incredible moment Grand Canyon lit up by ferocious lightning
A photographer managed to capture the moment the Grand Canyon was recently lit up by jaw-dropping streaks of lightning.
Using clever low exposure techniques, photographer Rolf Maeder managed to capture multiple strikes hitting the canyon under atmospheric stormy skies.
Rolf told Rex Features: "Sometimes an opportunity comes very unexpected. On 30 August, my friends Scott Stulberg, Holly Kehrt, both wonderful photographers, and I were driving from Sedona to the Grand Canyon to get some sunset shots.
"After a short time being there, we noticed that we couldn't get what we wanted because of the very hazy light. So we decided to return to Sedona, just shortly checking out some more viewpoints.
"On the Moran Point we noticed that far away a lightning storm was building up. That was much more than we expected, so we started setting up our tripods and started to take pictures.
"The shot with the two lightning strikes was taken 9pm with a Nikon D800, 24mm at f/8, ISO 400 and a 25 sec. exposure. The long exposure made it possible to catch two lightning bolts with one shot! The foreground was light-painted with a flashlight by Scott."
The Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long, up to 18 miles (29 km) wide and reaches a depth of over a mile (6,000 feet or 1,800 metres).
Nearly two billion years of the Earth's geological history has been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock.
These images were shot from Moran Point (elevation: 7160 ft / 2182 m) on the South Rim of the canyon.
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