Lightning over downtown Charleston, from a rooftop.

The bolt is the horizontal kind, and it went a long way — crossing the entire width of the frame along the base of the cloud, branching downward in a dozen places without ever coming to ground. It turned the whole sky violet for the length of the exposure. Below it the city stays small and ordinary: tile and metal roofs, air handlers, a lit steeple standing up out of the middle, warm windows down at street level.

Violet and white above, brick and warm light below. Not a view most people have had of the city.