Severe storm with rotation near Picacho Peak
I actually didn’t learn this was a severe storm until a few minutes later, but I could tell it was nasty just by looking at it. Very strong downdraft that appeared to be hail, then the dust could be seen exploding in all directions…and the base of the storm itself looked like a very tiny wall cloud in a way. Suddenly as I’m timelapsing, I notice a curious area of rotation that looks like a funnel up in the cloud. It could have been one, or not…but I did confirm with meteorologist Royal Norman that this storm indeed had rotation [...]
Speed Limit 55
What a day of stormchasing on Friday! All the way south almost to Tucson, when crazy lightning starts happening, but also a lot of rain and tough shooting conditions. We ended up heading back to Phoenix because newer storms were building west of it and we figured that was easier to intercept than chasing them south of Tucson. Almost looked like this amazing night would turn out to be a bust because I hadn’t gotten a single lightning photo. Then we got to Phoenix and it was still looking grim. But I noticed a darkness growing over South Mountain and [...]
The Arizona Twister
(please click to enjoy a view on black!) If dust devils were tornadoes, Arizona would be the capital of the world. During these hot summer days, you can drive down the long interstates through the desert and see these towering twisters of dust almost anywhere. They can be tiny things, barely 10 feet tall and they sputter out after minutes. Or they can be long-lasting, tornado-like vortices that sometimes make you do a double-take to just make sure it’s not an actual twister. While out stormchasing on Labor Day, my buddy Ken and I spotted this elephant trunk-like dust devil [...]
Lightstorm
(Please click to view on black) Sometimes the weather forecasters predict a big storm to hit in the coming days, only to either be wrong or off a bit on the timing. But for the last 2-3 days, the National Weather Service kept saying a low pressure system would move into SW Arizona on Labor Day creating some intense storms and lots of rain. Which is exactly what happened. I had been planning on an all-day, noon-to-midnight stormchasing event for Labor Day and was pumped when Monday morning nothing in the forecast had changed. My buddy Ken met me at [...]
The stormy skies of Arizona
(Click to see larger on a black background) There is no doubt that Arizona has some of the best skies anywhere in the country, especially during the monsoon season. The desert landscapes, mountains, terrain…they all work together with the clouds to create amazing views. Certainly we don’t get the awesome supercells that the midwest sees, but they get stuck with a lot of the same farmlands and wheat fields most of the time. The diversity of Arizona is incredible. This monsoon season has been completely opposite of last year for me. I have just a sick amount of lightning shots, [...]
Thunderstorms over the Catalina Mountains
Back on July 30th, my buddy Ken and I spent most of the afternoon and evening around the Tucson area stormchasing. On our way down there we stopped by this little agriculture field growing who knows what and watched the clouds building over the Catalina Mountains. At first we just took pictures and tried to keep the bugs off our necks, but then I decided to do a timelapse. I think we hung around for another 45 minutes to an hour to capture the 1018 shots that went into this one. I love the multiple downdrafts of rain you can [...]
Vortex of Electricity
We return to last Thursday night just above Casa Grande on highway 387 north of the city. A great spot for an elevated position over the city, the second I arrived and got setup, the light show went nuts. I think I have at least 3-4 keepers just from a 20 minute span here and that didn’t count a couple I got early on the south edges of Phoenix. These first few shots I got here were kind of special though. Yes, the Chaos of Light I posted last week was pretty dang intense and probably the best of the [...]
Chaos of Light
(please click to view on black, it’s just that much better) I was in Vegas for two pretty busy days Wednesday and Thursday. Landed back home around 5pm last night. Ate dinner, spent some time with the family, saw some weather on the radar and since it had been almost week since I did any kind of stormchasing, I decided to head out. Glad I did. I captured a few strikes early on from Queen Creek and I-10, but then I decided to head south. I stopped for a bit, hoping more lightning would flare up and soon enough, further [...]
Intensity (A beautiful mistake)
(click to see this even more intensely) There is almost nothing about this capture that was done correctly. First off, you are looking at a crop of the upper-left third of the original RAW file. Meaning, I didn’t aim too well. This was my first time using the new (old) 70-210mm and this was shot at a focal length of 205mm…so I ended up being a bit closer than I wanted, plus I totally misjudged what I was seeing in the viewfinder, so I was too far down-right. Secondly…and I’m not sure where the mistake happened, but this was shot [...]
Downpour on the San Tans
(click, see larger, dark background, you get the idea) It’s kind of interesting if you ever go back to just wipe out old RAW files that you realize you’ll never, ever process, so may as well just recover some disk space. While I do usually end up deleting a ton of files, sometimes you discover those that you just plain forgot about. And at the same time, you may have improved your processing techniques enough that suddenly an image that didn’t “move” you before, suddenly speaks to you in a new way. This shot is from waaaay back on August [...]
Mike is a Phoenix Wedding Photographer based in Arizona and can be contacted via all the normal methods and then some.