When the photo appeared on the online version of the Corriere della Sera, Monday, February 11, she immediately around the Web. A flash, gorgeous, stands out against the dark blue sky Roman night and hits the cross atop of? Me of St. Peter. It was the day of the resignation of the pope and the reactions were not long in coming.
A symbolic photo, too, according to users who immediately cried false. Photoshop? A set of perspective? The controversy has risen so fast that the Corriere saw fit to interview the author of the picture, the Italian Alessandro Di Meo. Photojournalist for ANSA, the Italian news agency, he claims to have been “in the right place at the right time.”
He says to have sheltered under the columns instead of the Vatican, when the first lightning fell. A second hit the dome while he was cleaning his goal. He then tried several times to take a good photo. It took him 40 minutes, the camera resting on a fence, to capture, to 17 h 56, the magic moment.
Di Meo also specifies, for enthusiasts, the technical details: 8 seconds of exposure to an opening 9 and iso 50. This is the wide-angle lens that allowed him to include all the basilica in the frame.
If evidence is good, two is better. Alessandro Di Meo was not the only photograph of lightning fell on Monday night.
His colleague from the AFP, Filippo Monteforte, almost make one with the same image, taken from a different point of view and with a 50mm lens. The history of Monteforte, told the AFP blog, Making-of, much like that of Di Meo. He also in the columns of St. Peter’s Square to escape the rain, he also speaks of “luck.” He claims to have tried to take the picture for two hours: “I believe in everything, lightning struck the top of the basilica three times The first flash was huge, everything is illuminated, but I did. sadly missed. I had better luck the second time. I took two pictures of lightning fell upon the d? enlightened me. ”
The story of Di Meo has even been validated by Stefano Dietrich, head of studies at the Institute of wrath atmospheric sciences and climate of Rome. The equipment of the institute recorded two lightning in the area to 17 h 54. Dietrich does not mean that one of them struck the dome of the Vatican. The time difference can be explained by an incorrect setting of the camera Di Meo.
Finally, to really understand how fast to react a photojournalist who falls on the photo of the day, there’s this BBC video. 27 seconds at idle which confirm the facts lightning really fell on St. Peter on Monday February 11.









