Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
Storm Chasing Diary: Saving the Best For Last
Sunset Supercell Lightning, Amistad, New Mexico
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 50
f/18
1/4 second
I’ve really enjoyed sharing my storm chasing images and experiences with everyone here on my blog, but need to end this “Storm Chasing Diary” series so I can return to some the unprocessed images from other recent trips. So the “last” referred to in the title is the series, not the images, which will keep coming as time permits.
“Best” is a very subjective term. I can’t even decide for sure that this image is the best one I captured this day, but I’m going with it because at the very least, it was the most thrilling.
After finishing with the storm cell I wrote about in my previous blog—the one with the double rainbow split by a lightning bolt, I looked around, wondering where everyone had gone. A minute ago we were all-in on the rainbow, but now I was alone. No, they weren’t playing a trick on me, they were lined up on the road about 100 feet away, aiming their cameras the other direction, toward a storm that had organized into a massive supercell while I was off chasing rainbows.
Surveying that scene, I said aloud and to no one in particular, “Well, this looks interesting,” then ambled off to join them. Surely I wouldn’t be able to top what I’d just captured, so on the way I stopped to share my excitement over capturing a double rainbow with a lightning bolt with our trip leader, Chris Gullikson. As I prepared to pull up the image on the back of my camera, a lightning bolt like none I’d ever seen froze me. This electric monster stretched from the base of the new supercell’s anvil—a thunderstorm’s cap, where the convection ceases and the clouds spread horizontally—all the way to the ground, instantly infusing me with deeper understanding of why everyone was so focused on this new storm. (Not to mention a renewed sense of urgency.)
This lightning was on a completely different scale from the ones I’d just been photographing—certainly in intensity, but even more impressive (and unprecedented in my personal history) was its length. The storm’s anvil topped out over 50,000 feet above the ground, and though the anvil’s top wasn’t visible from down on the ground, the bolt I’d just seen must have spanned several vertical vertical miles before stabbing the ground only about a mile away.
I quickened my pace (okay, sprinted), found a slot in the group’s already established firing line, and hastily set up. Since my Lightning Trigger was already attached and ready to go, all I need to do was compose and re-meter. To this point, most of my supercell images had used a 12-24 or 16-35 lens—wide enough to include the entire structure. But both were back in the van and I didn’t want to take my eyes off the storm to go fetch them if I didn’t need to. So I twisted my 24-105 all the way out to 24mm, and found it was just wide enough to include all of the most important components of the scene: the wall cloud, the rain curtain and sun, plus a little of the road. Though the cell was moving pretty rapidly from right to left, I reasoned I could stick with the 24-105 as long as I monitored my composition and adjusted for the motion every minute or two. Then I crossed my fingers, hoping that my composition would reach high enough to include all of whatever lightning I saw.
With everything ready for the next lightning strike, I took the time to appreciate the view. Of course every supercell is spectacularly beautiful, but this one was made even more special by its proximity to the sun, which etched its glowing disk in the dense rain curtain, and infused the backlit the clouds with a rich, golden hue. Surely, I thought, adding a lightning bolt like the one I just saw to something already so beautiful would be too much to ask for.
Apparently not. While I’ve seen many storms dispense more lightning than this one, the emphasis here was clearly on quality over quantity. In the 30 or so minutes I photographed it, I captured 6 bolts of similar brilliance and length to that first one. The one I’m sharing here was not only the evening’s strongest, eliciting the most ooohs and ahhhs from the group, it was also the most perfectly positioned, making it an easy to choice to be the first to process. I eventually went back and processed a couple of others as vertical frames, partly to add variety, and partly because they were just too beautiful to let languish on a hard drive.
If you’d have told me before the storm chasing workshop that we’d have one day where we saw multiple tornadoes, but that our best day would be a day with zero tornadoes, I wouldn’t have believed you. But if someone held a gun to my head and told me to pick one “best” day of the storm chasing trip, I’d have to say (before disarming them and rendering them unconscious, of course) this day would be the one.
June 7, 2025, Near Amistad, New Mexico (processed so far)
It’s days like this one, as well as our nearly as memorable tornado day, that remind me why I am a nature photographer. The unpredictability of the natural world, combined with its absolute insistence on doing exactly what it wants to do, can make photographing it an extremely frustrating endeavor. But then we get rewards like this.
One other thing this whole storm chasing experience did for me was reinforce my message to people who tell me how lucky I am to live in California, where I have so much world class beauty right at my doorstep. And while I can’t disagree (or complain!), I remind them that California skies are generally quite boring. The atmospheric sights I witnessed were every bit as spectacular as any more permanent terrestrial feature I’ve witnessed. Which is why I’m jealous of anyone who lives somewhere that serves up skies like this from time-to-time. Fortunately, until I return, I have the bounty I collected on this trip, both processed and yet-to-be processed, to keep me happy. So while this may be the last of my “Storm Chasing Diary” series, it absolutely won’t be the end of new images from this trip.
I’m also excited to say that this experience so greatly exceeded my expectations in so many ways (far beyond the photography itself, believe it or not), that I’ve decided to continue doing (this thing that was supposed to be a one-off) on into the future. In fact, Jeremy Woodhouse and I have already scheduled a storm chasing workshop for next summer, and are in the planning stages for another one in 2027.
Join me on another storm chasing adventure next summer
The Joy of Lightning
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Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 
Stunning!!
Dear Gary,
I have loved your Eloquent Images since I “discovered” them years ago when I lived in Oakdale CA. Yosemite was planted in my heart center when I was 4 and camped there for the first time. Then in my later 60’s we moved to Flagstaff to be near our daughter who had been working at the GCNP since getting her masters at Humboldt in Fire Ecology. She was first a seasonal in Fire Effects starting in 2010 on the North Rim. Eventually she joined the Helitack crew and lived on the South Rim. In 2017 she returned to the North Rim to remain for 5 more years on the fire crew.
GCNP had a contract with the North Kaibab FS in Fredonia to jointly oversee the crew and the stewardship of the plateau on the North Rim. My daughter eventually left to work with BLM in Nevada after growing dissatisfaction with how the FS was supporting the North Rim GCNP crew, allowing dysfunction in leadership to continue at the risk of the safety of the crew. After she left, the fire crew that had been maintained onsite in the Emergency Services/Admin area was stationed at Jacob Lake, a full 49 miles from the NR headquarters. The first Dragon Bravo Incident Commander appointed after the lighting fire started and was discovered at .25 acres was a GCNP fire employee stationed at the FS office in Fredonia. He would visit the NR about once a year.
And now we are here with over 105,000 acres of mostly GCNP land burning. Ponderosa is a fire dependent species so it won’t be like fires in Yosemite. Still, I know that the North Rim Lodge and the Veranda were favorite haunts of yours and of your photography classes.
We continue to hear from her friends who had still been working at the North Rim how everything is so uncertain. Her partner who was also working at the NR as an LE ranger had transferred a few years ago to be a canyon LE ranger. Everyone’s job on both the NR and SR have been deeply impacted. This is after they have gone through the DOGE gloom of late winter, early spring.
The employees at Phantom Ranch are now up on the SR. As you must know people work at the GCNP and Yosemite NP and all parks because they love the location, they love the hiking and they love being of service to the visitors, American and International.
I started this note to sort of fill you in on the back story. Oh, I didn’t mention that the town of Flagstaff has been deeply impacted by the fires and change of lifestyle for their people who work at the national park and national monuments and especially the NR.
Maybe at some point you can help people through Eloquent Images to appreciate the enormity of this all: for all those who love the NR, the Shangrila of the park and of northern Arizona.
Sharing the majesty and the enormity of this world. Much gratitude for your work in the ways it contributes to the soulful connections for so many.
June Milich
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Wow, some incredible images
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