MooseNewsBlog

We had no “super cell” tornadic activity today but that’s OK by me. We were richly rewarded. We were in KS for the day working the tail end charlies of the storm track arcing into MO. We didn’t suffer one bit!

What you see here is what we saw. The color was that amazing. The clouds tried and tried to break the cap to form a proper super cell but they couldn’t make it. As the sun went down other energies came in and what you see is the result. This was simply beyond description!

We ended up our day and our storm chasing with a lightning storm that blew away any 4th July show. The lightning was still going when we left 40mins later. What you can’t see in this small image are the blurs from the fireflies trying their best to flash fill the foreground. One helluva a week and a whole new appreciation for those heavenly bodies!

Photos captured by D3, 14-24AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

It’s all about position, this storm chasing thing. I’m writing right now two blocks away from six homes that were destroyed by a tornado that went through Belleville, KS. My heart goes out to all these folks, some are reported still trapped in their homes. You have my prayers! Until you’ve gone through a tornado at night, you just can’t imagine the terror! We had the luxury of amazing guides with incredible tools to keep us out of harms way. These folks weren’t as fortunate! (05.30 update, no one reported injured)

Yeah, that’s a GIANT freakin wall cloud and there is a tornado here, and we’re there to witness it! In the lower photo, you can see the dust blum starting (left side), that’s the base of the tornado. Moments after this photo was taken, we were in the vehicles and heading east to get back in front of the super cell. This tornado not to long after this photo was taken went through Kearney, NE.

We drove 500 miles today, most of the time literally chasing the storm. Working the sophisticated computer models, looking at GPS road maps, the Tempest Tour team gets us in place at the right time, and safely! I am in awe of Bill, Brian and Keith and their ability to read mother nature and put us in the right place over and over again. Simply put, they are the BEST!

Photos captured via the Tempest Team’s skill to put me in the right place, it’s all about position!

This was a day where we had to make the choice of either loosing 1 or 2 days of possible tornadoes. Rather then heading to NM and loose two days of activity, the wise choice was made to drive 460 miles to NE so we can chase thur/fri. Along the way of our travels today, we made a number of stops to learn a little and stretch a little.

This is Monument Rocks, KS and is the first National Natural Landmark so designated by the US Dept of the Interior. It’s in the middle of nowhere KS and is on private land (the land owners are kind enough to just let folks in). Also known as the Chalk Pyramids, they are pretty way cool and I’m very glad we were taken to them!

Now you might be wondering why there is a B&W and color version of each image. As you can see it was an overcast afternoon so I shot thinking B&W, composing for B&W and was going that route in post until I dropped my black point and realized I liked the muted tan tones. Now the bottom B&W is my favorite of them all, but the others are growing on me. I’ll let you decide what you like the best.

Photos captured by D3, 14-24AFS/24-70AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

We started the day knowing the likelyhood of seeing a tube being real slim. No matter, we headed southwest a couple hundred miles to the best bet in the SW corner of OK. Along the way, we stop to look at the majesty of the towers as they form.

So needless to say, with so much road time, I take to shooting drive-by style. The biggest challenge here is eliminating the reflections on the inside of the window. Oh yeah, and keeping the horizon plum.

What’s really cool is the leaders of our tour are not just tornado chasers, but severe weather photographers. Brian who is our driver/guide is great and when it comes to getting us in place to make the image, he works his butt off for us. He makes me look good. Thanks Brian!

Photos captured by D3, 14-24AFS/24-70AFS on Lexar UDMA film

This was a more typical day of storm chasing with the super cells forming later in the day. That gave us the opportunity to see more of the KS countryside up close. We lunched in the small town of Offerle and this great little taco place. Its water tower was way cool and was the first to see the inflow of moisture, the clouds in the background, of the forming super cell we were to chase.

Spring wheat is pretty much what we saw lots of today. In the background is the first super cell of the day releasing a little of its energy in the form of rain and then later hail and lightning that sent us on our way trying to get in front of the moving dry line.

This photo was taken from the window of the van as we sped down the road. Just minutes earlier three tornadoes briefly touched down outside the town of Pratt. Just moments before that, we passed tornado damage from the storms of last Friday. While we have the luxury of “chasing” mother nature’s furry which is awe inspiring and most spectacular, I can’t help but think about those living on this landscape. When the sirens sounded in Pratt the thought struck me, “what would I do with only a 10 minute warning?” What occurred yesterday in Iowa is a reminder of the power of twisters and the resolve of those who live here to do just that, live here.

Photos captured by D3, 14-24AFS/24-70AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

With a dew point below 70, winds from the south and not the southwest, with no bars when we need two or more, our giant super cell over Ransom KS turned into five, all with cold down drafts dissipating their energy. Is all of this storm chasing jargon accurate, well, not quite. I’ve not got all the terminology down yet because this storm chasin has its own language, but I’m learning. It does produce amazing heavenly bodies!

While there were three tornadoes where we were today, we only saw the brief dust tube of one way off in the distance (that didn’t count after yesterday’s success). This was a hopeful that never materialized. As soon as you feel the cold wind come from a super cell like this, you know the energy is gone from it to produce a twister. But damn, there are incredibly cool. This thing is 15miles across!

The light that does eventually manage to come under the storm as it goes by is simply gorgeous! One of the “tricks” of tornadoes chasing is gaining contrast. Just as photographers have come to know it, contrast is the key to seeing a tuber because otherwise, it’s just gray on gray.

After calling it a day of tornado chasing, we stopped to take in the light show. While the lightning was 15-19 miles off, this 10sec exposure captured a number of CC (that’s cloud to cloud lightning to you laymen) lighting up the night sky above Great Bend, KS.

Photos captured by D3, 14-24AFS/24-70AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

The light that escapes a tornado is simply beyond verbal description. Somewhere in there is the remains of a hog farm, not everything escapes. The “classic” view of a funnel cloud on the ground is a rare site which was hard for us to believe since we so easily saw ten tornadoes today. But one member of our group from the Netherlands, this is his third trip chasing tornadoes and the first time he’s seen one.

Our day finished pulled of I-35 as the end of the anvil was just to our west. I’m in total awe of the power we witnessed today!

Photos captured by shire luck!

That’s right, I’m out “storm chasing!” Last Photoshop World, Kalebra Kelby (Scott’s wife) asked me if I wanted to go storm chasing with her and her brother, so here I am. Our group (I get to be one of the “participants” this trip) left OKC this afternoon and by dark, we’d seen 10 tornadoes. If you watched CNN today, we were there where one tornado “vaporized a hog farm.” The top photo is my first photo ever of a tornado and while not the best I captured today, it’s now 2am, we’re just getting in our rooms, we have a 10:30 meeting call and I have 7, 8GB cards loading. So, I grabbed a couple of images I liked so I could blog and go back to work. As time permits, I’ll post more images from our week of chasing which has already started out beyond imagination.

The power in these storms cannot be imagined from watching movies or TV. Once today we were “chased” out as the cell instantly, and I mean instantly, grew over our heads. Our heart goes out to those who live here and weren’t out for the fun of it, but for their very existence. To them, it was all too serious!

Photos captured by D3, 200f2VR / 14-24AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

I’m a real lucky guy, I have some great friends who also have incredible talent. One of those is this crazy guy, RC Conception. You might know him from Layers Magazine or Layers TV, fortunately for me, I know him simply as friend.

Well, my friend thought, and rightfully so, that my old gallery was, well, dated. So, he asked for some images, a little bit of input and then with great imagination and passion created what you can all now see here. As time goes on we’ll add more images to the galleries. RC has made it real simple because he knows me all to well, I need simple. And if you want to learn some of the magic that RC used, you can learn directly from him here.

Thanks RC!

It’s hard to say good-bye, but we’ve had our last shoot, saw an amazing participant slideshow and now it’s time to die. Tonight we went to another favorite grove, Del Norte. More difficult to shoot, it does have some real treasures locked up in its trees. As you can see, I was shooting in a B&W mode and enjoyed every moment of it!

I want to publically state a huge thank you and express my respect for those who are the DLWS staff. Joe, Laurie, Kevin, Josh, Brad, Joe and especially Sharon make DLWS special for our participants and make sure that the main ingredient of DLWS, the passion for photography, flows! Here’s right back at you guys!

Photos captured by D3, 200f2VR on Lexar UDMA digital film

Ah, Jedidiah Smith, Reed Grove, I know of no finer forest of Coastal Redwoods to photograph! We had a spectacular morning of shooting starting with fog that slowly burnt off to let in selective God Beams to kiss the massive giants. I know it was a great morning of shooting because CF cards were being bummed off me, folks had filled up theirs.

One thing I learned that shooting this 13stop range eats up card space. I’ll have to rethink hard drive storage space next time I photograph for a week in the redwoods.

Photo captured by D3, 24PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film

We spent the evening out on the rocks over Battery Point. While this God Beam is kissing the horizon, McNally has nine guys lighting themselves with SB-800s just out of frame left on a rock out in the water. It’s a typical scene at DLWS but man, did we draw a crowd.

The main show was the Battery Point Lighthouse. While it normally doesn’t work this way (requiring the taking of two photos, one for the waves and a second for the light), I lucked out and got the waves and light in one capture making my post time a snap. For the very first time, I found a when the “vivid” setting in the D3 worked.

Photos captured by D3, 200f2VR on Lexar UDMA digital film