Photographer Captures Statue of Liberty Getting Zapped by Lightning

Photographer Dan Martland is well-known for his exquisite photography of New York City but he outdid himself yesterday afternoon during a violent thunderstorm that saw a bolt of lightning strike the Statue of Liberty.

Martland was on hand to capture the mega photo of an enormous lightning bolt directly hitting Lady Liberty’s torch. “This afternoon’s passing storm didn’t disappoint,” Martland writes on X (formerly Twitter). “The Statue of Liberty getting zapped by a bolt of lightning.”

The photographer was out in the elements noting that it was “quite a moist and windy one” as the thunderstorm battered New York at around 18:00 local time.

Martland put his amazing capture down to “pure luck”.

“I usually shoot the city in storms but I couldn’t see anything with all the low clouds,” he explains on X. “This is why I went close to the Statue of Liberty. Just wanted to see something.”

Martland had two cameras trained on the iconic statue which both captured the lightning strike. He used a “lightning trigger”, not video, to capture the images meaning his photos are proper still images.

“I usually track the weather with apps and head out if it’s looking good,” Martland explains on Instagram. “I’ve had a time where I’ve been out for eight hours and not nothing. Today, was only an hour. The storm passed pretty quick. And the apps showed that there were no more cells coming my way.”

Mischievous commenters asked Martland if the photos were AI-generated but the intrepid photographer insisted he got his feet wet for the shot.

The storm that hit New York City on Wednesday evening brought almost three inches of rain causing concern that low-lying areas might flood. Coastal areas in New Jersey and New York remain on flood warnings.

More of Martland’s work can be found on his Twitter, Instagram, and website.

Image credits: Photographs by Dan Martland