Clouds over New York City
Sometimes taking photos from a plane just doesn’t amount to much afterwards. You really have to find a sky or a scene in front of you that is so unique that capturing it from a plane makes it amazing. I don’t think this is close to that kind of photo, but what I do love is the angle I was able to get with the plane turning to the right as we headed to JFK in New York. The clouds were beautiful and up on the horizon they were moving left to right and forming storms as they made their [...]
Northern Arizona stormy fenceline
This is another one of those shots from my northern Arizona trip that I didn’t process for a long time. I normally like my skies less rain-cloudy and more fluffy cumulus, but I dug the backdrop and corner fence posts in the foreground. Definitely was a fruitful trip in the way of photography for me, despite being there for work. Got very lucky with the stormy weather up north, got to see Grand Falls, amazing parts of the northern Arizona high deserts and came away with a ton of quality stuff. Amazing how a little trip like that, with almost [...]
The road through the forest
While it may be obvious from my constant babble about weather, storms and lightning, that I LOVE that stuff with passion, there is also something else I enjoy immensely. The cool pine trees of northern Arizona. Being a desert-born dude who lives in the Phoenix area almost year round, minus the occasional excursion elsewhere, getting out of that blistering sunshine is of vital importance, especially during the summer. Ever since I was a kid my dad used to take us camping once or twice a summer. People who don’t live in Arizona have no idea that the pine trees are [...]
Another scene from stormy northern Arizona
I continue to dig a little here and there into the pictures I took in the middle of May when I went up to northern Arizona on a work trip. I made a detour on the way home to visit Grand Falls and stopped to snap many photos along the way. The weather was gorgeous, storms were plentiful and something I had not expected. This was along Indian Route 6910. I loved the giant rock formation in the middle of the generally rocky terrain, but also the cool part of this shot is the San Francisco peaks that you can [...]
Stormchasing: A backlit Nebraska storm
Of all the things I saw during my trip to Nebraska to chase around some storms, this scene was one of the best. I don’t even know if the HDR processing can convey what it looked like in person, but it was breathtaking. The sun back-lighting the falling rain, the scud clouds moving quickly along the surface…the dirt road running into the distance…the grass was blowing, the clouds churning…it was a sight to behold. Myself and another stormchaser were just standing here, talking, looking in awe and snapping photos. A good guy too, from the town of Ogalalla where I [...]
Stormy skies in northern Arizona
This photo is from a few weeks ago on my trip to see the Grand Falls in northern Arizona. The clouds were stormy, but not really dropping a ton of rain…like these in the shot. Mostly virga, but still awesome to see. The skies were amazing that day and I had to stop every few minutes to snap another photo. Helped that I was on a 10-mile dirt road going only 25 mph. This is panoramic made up of two, 3-bracket HDR photos stitched together in Photoshop. The clouds were so tall and spreading, I almost needed a third shot [...]
Stormchasing: More stormy skies
This is another photo from the Nebraska plains near the town of Mullen. The shot has an interesting feel to it, partly because of the HDR processing, but also the motion in the tall grasses. Before this big stormchasing adventure, I hadn’t planned on doing much HDR photography because I figured when you were up close to this stuff, the high winds would really be a disadvantage to taking multiple exposures in rapid succession. Even doing them quickly can’t keep up with 40-50mph winds and clouds that seem to be only hundreds of feet above your head. Photomatix is pretty [...]
Stormchasing: Scary clouds over the highway
My intention while I was out stormchasing was to get photographs that weren’t dominated by powerlines and other vehicles like a lot of severe weather photography is like these days. But I couldn’t resist the shot of these insanely crazy clouds over this road and the car of a few other stormchasers I was following along with. These guys were great…they pulled over alongside me earlier and asked if I was chasing, so we chatted and kind of stuck together for awhile. Good guys and it was amazing to find out how friendly people were. I met another stormchaser while [...]
Stormchasing: A long fence
Here’s another shot of a cool barbed wire fence in the sandy hills of Nebraska during a severe weather outbreak. The clouds are scary here, in fact, on the horizon just left of the fence, you can see a dark area that almost looks like a funnel dropping behind the hills. In fact, I was standing with a few other guys and we all thought it WAS a funnel, so within a second of taking this shot, I had ran into the truck and headed north. But the reason I love this photo is more of the fence starting on [...]
Stormchasing: Nebraska Roll Cloud
Up until now, none of the photos I’ve posted from my Nebraska stormchasing trip have been in HDR, but I thought I’d try a few and see what happened. I did three-exposures for every shot I took while out there, and it was impossible to take much more than that without an automatic method. The clouds moved so amazingly fast, doing 7-9 exposures wouldn’t work. I am loving the way a few of them turned out, so I will be posting a couple here and there. This first one is of a giant roll cloud that came racing across the [...]
Mike is a Phoenix Wedding Photographer based in Arizona and can be contacted via all the normal methods and then some.