Powerful storms swept through New York City on July 26, leaving a trail of social media chatter in its wake.
Ryan Brenizer, a local photographer, snapped the panorama of the thunderstorm front moving over Manhattan.
Taken at 7:40 p.m. from 27th Street and Second Avenue, and posted to his studio's Facebook page last night, the storm photo quickly went viral, being shared more than 1,700 times and earning more than 4,500 "likes."
Some Facebook commenters debated the photo's authenticity, while others compared the photo of the dark, stormy front to scenes from "Ghostbusters," "Batman," "Independence Day" and even "Harry Potter."
Brenizer said the image, which is a composite of 23 photos taken with a 24 mm lens last night, was "not Photoshopped to heck."
"Photoshop was only used for resizing and two types of sharpening -- small-radius sharpening to look crisp on the web, and a bit of large-radius sharpening for increased contrast," Brenizer told The Huffington Post via email.
The storm picture posted on Brenizer's Facebook was a compressed version of the original.
"In the original file, you can see in the buildings' windows," he wrote.
Brenizer has been a professional photographer for more than 13 years.
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