The history of photographing lightning really starts with the history of photography. The invention of photography was announced in 1839 in Paris; the photograph that was produced was called the Daguerreotype, named after Louis Daguerre. It was several years later before the first lightning photograph was made, and several decades would pass before there was the first successful efforts to photograph lightning for the purpose of science.

Originally released by Inside Science, 2018. Streaming video file encoded with permission for digital streaming by Infobase on August 15, 2018.

Catching Lightning With Photography (2:06); .