One interesting thing with lightning is before it actually strikes a specific target, there is often discharge from many targets all around. I forget what they call that, corona? Or is that something else? It happens for an extremely short amount of time, before the lightning "decides" what to hit. This is why stuff can fry even from indirect hits.
This particular pic looks like it's reflections/artifacts though.
As a side note, I captured this the other day when camping:
Lightening is always so cool to see.