A gnarled old hand
(click the image to see it fit your screen, or even larger, with a nice, dark background) I took this shot on one of the very first stormchasing days of the year, which didn’t amount to much. There was some puffy clouds, maybe some spotty rain, but it was really just the slow start to the monsoon season. This was the day I discovered this tree for the first time. I had my daughter with me and we just pulled off into the desert off Riggs and I-10, and ended up driving out a bit to find this little guy [...]
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 [...]
The August 18th, 2011 dust storm
With the massive storms that built up south of town, the dusty outflows formed a beautiful, long wall that gained momentum and pushed its way into the greater Phoenix area last night. I decided to head to the south side of town this time and used Queen Creek’s elevated shoulder near I-10 to get a quickie timelapse of it moving in. I have to say, all the craze over the July 5th haboob/dust storm was awesome, but I’ve really discovered a love for seeing these things in motion. The way the clouds develop over the top of them, the way [...]
The Dance of the Light
Being sick for the past 11 days or so, I hadn’t really taken any pictures, to say nothing of actually doing any stormchasing. Somewhat lucky for me, the weather was fairly quiet during most of the time I was couch-ridden, so I didn’t miss much. But I’m back to normal now and just in time. Last night Arizona had a walloping of storms explode across southeastern portions of the state and the weather moved into Phoenix by early evening. Most of the bad stuff stuck to the east valley, but we got a nice dust storm/haboob and then a great [...]
The Hills are Alive
Man. It’s been awhile since I’ve been that sick. Strange abdominal pain. 103 temp. Trip to the ER. Almost 10 days being completely away from the online world. And the whole time with the iPad on my lap re-watching Battlestar Galactica. God bless Netflix. Happy to report I got through all 76 episodes. And yes, it was awesome as always. Anyways, despite being sick, it was a nice break from everything. Cleared my head a bit, stopped thinking about what I’m usually obsessed about(photography) and just laid around, soaking up up some time off. Felt good. Also feels good to [...]
The Tweezers
(Clickity click…to view on blackity black) So my daughter has been sick all week with a lovely stomach virus. Not napping well, not sleeping through the night, fevers…lots of good stuff. Apparently that transferred to me yesterday, and I was feeling darn lousy all day. I pretty much lounged around on the couch being a big baby. Wasn’t even thinking of going out after storms. In fact, the forecast called for NOTHING in the Phoenix area last night. No need to worry right? Suddenly storms just roll in from all over. I walk outside, look just north and it’s like [...]
Lightning on the 89A
(Click to see the image smaller so it fits your screen, or enjoy it on your huge stinking monitor!) At the start of the year, I had a sort of awakening. I had changed up the way I processed images and discovered the beauty of black and white. It was the work of Mitch Dobrowner that really spoke to me around that time and I vowed to myself that this storm season I’d use a lot less color in my storm photography. Even lightning. Suddenly it’s the middle of the stormchasing season and I hadn’t done a lick of lightning [...]
Sunsets and Strikes
(click on the images to view in lightbox) This season of stormchasing has been amazing so far. July is now in the books and yet the stuff I’ve seen already this summer has been just awesome. A lot of that has to do with just BEING out there more than last year, but I feel like there have just been some epic scenes that I’ve been lucky to witness. For example, last night I had planned to stay in town and just shoot lightning if it moved into Phoenix in the evening. Our daughter has been sick and Sunday was [...]
Old Man Sunset
(Click to watch the storm as God intended…larger, with a dark border) Scenes like these are the reason why I love chasing and photographing the monsoons here in Arizona. This was the day before the big haboob arrived in Phoenix. As you can see, dust storms in this state are a normal occurrence during the summer (just nothing so bad as the July 5th one). I was headed south from Phoenix and saw a big wall of dust headed our way, along with a pretty epic looking stormcell. On radar, it was actually headed perfectly towards town. So I had [...]
Independence Day
(click to view a tad larger with a black border) Yup, it’s the middle of the week and that means Movie Title Wednesday! Independence Day. Awesome film. Total summer movie popcorn fun. Will Smith taking down aliens. Jeff Goldblum mumbling and uttering cool phrases like “Forget the fat lady! You are obsessed with fat ladies!” Harry Connick Jr., Randy Quaid with his “Up yours!”…and just all kinds of good stuff. Perhaps the biggest, cheesiest part of the movie is Bill Pullman standing up in front of the men giving his Independence Day speech right before we figure out how to [...]
Mike is a Phoenix Wedding Photographer based in Arizona and can be contacted via all the normal methods and then some.