War of the Worlds
(click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, 50mm 1.4, f/5.6, iso 100, 30 sec // buy print) It’s Movie Title Wednesday here on the bloggity blog blog, and this week we have a remake of an old classic, which was an adaption from one of my favorite books of all-time. War of the Worlds. The recent remake version starred Tom Cruise and was just okay for me. I love those kind of sci-fi, end of the world type disaster films, but they just didn’t do a very good job with it. The original version (at least, I [...]
A hundred million fingers
(click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 35mm 1.4, f/5.6, iso 100, 30 sec // buy print) My favorite band in all the world is Snow Patrol. I’ve loved them for years now. Most of the time when I like a band, I end up being bored with them after listening to their CD for awhile. Not so with this group. They’ve never, ever gotten old to me. I was finally able to see them in concert a few years back and wish they’d return to Arizona soon. The reason I bring them up is because [...]
The Dance
(click to see on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 70-210mm f/4, 205mm, f/5.6, iso 400, 30 sec // buy print) The one fun thing about stormchasing…whether it’s photographing monstrous thunderheads, dust storms, or lightning strikes…is that it’s always different. Something new, something exciting…something you learn. For instance…lightning strikes. They are never the same. Which is why I love it so much. And even when two lightning strikes almost appear to be mirror reflections of each other, they are still different. Like in this photo. But it’s still kind of interesting to look at from a sort of “un-microscopic” [...]
Crashdown
(click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 70-210 f/4, 125mm, f/8, iso 200, 20 sec // buy print) One of my favorite characters from the recent epic sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica was a guy named Crashdown played by Alex Quartararo Sam Witwer (totally got his name wrong last week when I posted this). I wont tell you how long he was on the show, or what his fate was, but I always remembered him mostly because I thought the actor was pretty cool. So I was thrilled to see him appear as one of the leads [...]
Just a road…with a storm
(click to see on black // canon 5d mark ii, tamron 17-35mm 2.8, 17mm, iso 100, f/22, 1/50 // buy print) There is nothing I love more than a nice road photograph. I really can never tire of them. The problem with stormchasing is that all you are doing is driving down roads most of the time, so you are tempted to do nothing but stand in the middle of every awesome highway you see. Hence I try to find random things down dirt roads, like rocks, cactus, whatever…to try and frame a shot. But I still shoot roads and [...]
Purple Rain
(click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 50mm 1.4, f/6.3, iso 200, 25 sec // buy print) Let me just get this out of the way. It’s Movie Title Wednesday. I needed something to go with this shot from Tuesday night. Purple Rain. I mean, what else could possibly work right? Although I will say this…it’s obvious to me, but I had my buddy Jacob Lucas try to guess it last night and he didn’t come close to the right title. In fact, he didn’t even know that was rain falling. So maybe it’s just me. [...]
A sunset near Tucson
(click to see on black // canon 5d mark ii, tamron 17-35mm 2.8, 18mm, f/22, iso 250, 6 sec // buy print) Saturday was a blast. I left the house early in the afternoon, probably between 12 and 1. I headed south where I knew it was going to be an active day and sure enough…by the time I get down to Picacho Peak, I’m on the first severe warned storm of the day. Not only that, about an hour later, as I’m still chasing it…the cell gets tornado warned. I never saw a funnel, but I had fun just [...]
Yet another Phoenix dust storm – September 11, 2011
We’ve lost track of the number of large dust storms (or HABOOBS) that have rolled into Phoenix this monsoon season. Some people think it’s more than normal. I kind of think that the big one from July 5th put everyone on alert for these things and now anytime we get one it’s a big deal…and more noticeable. Dust storms are very commonplace out here and we get them every summer. Granted, we may have had some pretty dry deserts, so the dust could just be a bit more plentiful than normal. Another thing that also may be a difference is [...]
Flash floods in southern Arizona
Friday afternoon and Saturday were some pretty eventful storm days for southeastern Arizona. I was down there both days chasing storms, lightning…etc…but something I wasn’t really thinking about were flash floods. The deserts are usually very, very dry, so when you get a massive downpour of rain, it doesn’t seep into the earth. It just runs downhill. And if you have mountains and hills nearby, it all adds up to quickly form flash floods. In the first two clips of flooding, the storm that dumped the rain was severe warned and even had rotation on it…which I kind of captured [...]
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 [...]
Mike is a Phoenix Wedding Photographer based in Arizona and can be contacted via all the normal methods and then some.