What was claimed
A photo of dozens of lightning strikes was taken recently in Caldbeck, the Lake District.
Our verdict
The picture was taken in 2011 on the Greek Island of Ikaria.
Claims that a 2011 lightning composite picture were taken in the Lake District are false
18 August 2020
A number of posts on Facebook have claimed to show a striking image of a storm taken in Caldbeck in the Lake District in early August 2020.
This is not the case. The picture is a composite taken in 2011 by photographer Chris Kotsiopoulos.
He took a number of pictures during a thunderstorm on the Greek island of Ikaria. On his website, he says: “In order to make the sequence, I set the camera to a tripod taking 20 second shots continuously. After 83 minutes I ended up with approximately 90 lightning shots. I had to exclude around 20 because the photo condensed so much that [it] didn't look nice.”
Claims that the picture was taken in Caldbeck seem to stem from one Facebook user, whose name other posts credit the picture to. That Facebook user later posted that he had used the photo as a joke.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the picture was taken in 2011 on a Greek island.