Local photographer Harry Rout captures ‘unpredictable’ lightning strike from Pwakkenbak

Photographer Harry Rout saw the incoming storm on Tuesday evening and took the opportunity to try his luck with capturing the wild lightning that lit up the sky north-west of Mt Barker.

Mt Barker’s sky lit up as the lightning struck after a severe storm warning was issued on Tuesday afternoon, cautioning the Great Southern for heavy rain and flash flooding.

Planting himself and his camera at the top of Pwakkenbak, also known as Mt Barker Hill, Mr Rout tried his hand at capturing the magical storm for an hour.

“It was just a spur of the moment sort of thought,” he said.

“I saw the dark clouds rolling in and had my camera on and went up to the top of the tower on the mountain and waited for it to roll in.

“It’s quite unpredictable, I don’t really have much luck with doing storm photography, but it seemed like that storm just went past us, not really over us.

“It was quite a distance sort of shot with the lightning.”