Yahoo News WATCH: The amazing moment the Burj Khalifa is struck by lightning
It's all about timing.
Photographer Brian Hawkins captured the perfect moment when lightning struck the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, during a thunderstorm last week.
Hawkins set up in Dubai's Business Bay Area along with his friend, fellow photographer Michael Shainblum, on Wednesday night and waited for an hour and half for the storm.
"The timelapse video was made by taking about 500 individual photographs using a Canon 5D Mark III DSLR camera. A remote triggered the camera once every five seconds for about an hour," the Los Angeles-based photographer said.
"We tried to stay dry by standing under a building awning. After shooting, I rendered the photos into the timelapse video using Adobe After Effects."
Shainblum also captured the rare moment and shared the photo on his 500px profile, saying: "This photograph is 100% real!"
Just how did Shainblum get the shot? He explains:
"I stood out in the rain for 4 hours trying to get some kind of lightning strike around Downtown Dubai, I had no idea I would actually catch a lightning bolt hitting the Burj Khalifa. I was running a timelapse on two cameras during the strike. One camera was out by the water and one camera under some shelter. I noticed the rain started to get heavy and ran towards the camera by the water. By the time I got to the camera everything was soaked and the entire dirt lot had become flooded with mud and water. I noticed a giant strike and ran the camera back to the shelter to see if the 2nd camera had caught anything. This was the image I saw when I looked at the screen."
The pair were in Dubai for a vacation and to capture the city's scenes.
"This was my first visit to the Middle East and I hope to come back soon since I really enjoyed it. There's so much that I still want to do on another visit, including going to the top of the Burj Khalifa," Hawkins said.
Maybe he can get some tips from Sheikh Hamdan, Joe McNally or Gerald Donovan?
You can follow Brian Hawkins' work on his Instagram account and Michael Shainblum on 500px.
