I’d just finished photographing an event in a French Chateau and had the opportunity to photograph a thunderstorm in the distance. I was sat on my own, next to an open door, with a 2ft balcony and a 30ft drop below me.

I had the camera set on a tripod shooting 30 second exposures. Unfortunately the storm didn’t come close enough to get the epic fork lightning shot, but it was still peaceful being there.

When looking through my images the next morning I had three distinct shots. Completely black (no lightening) deep blue (lighting far away) and bright grey (a closer strike) There were no stand out images, but as I was deleting the none usable’s I came across this one.

What crossed in front of the lens??!!!

The foreground trees are completely sharp, no movement and there had been a some lightning in the distance turning the sky deep blue - but something caused movement in front of the lens.

I have no idea what it was and it freaked me out! I nearly deleted the photos at first as I thought I’d knocked the camera, but I hesitated as I was looking at the image and I couldn’t explain what I was seeing!

There were a few British workers at the event who had weird things happen while they were at the venue and this was mine?

What caused the movement??!

(This was shot in RAW with no editing - I also have the rest of the shoot with nothing else like this)