Storm Chasing Diary: Saving the Best For Last

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…

Storm Chasing Diary: Lucky Strike

How does one capture an image of a brilliant lightning bolt splitting the inverted prisms of a double rainbow? (No, not with AI or a composite—that’s cheating.) If you said luck, you’d be right—well, at least half right. But, right or not, there’s no surer way to elicit a defensive response from a nature photographer than to blurt some version of, “You were so…

Gone, But Not Forgotten

Grand Canyon Lodge, North Rim (1928 – 2025) The images I share in this post were all captured on the North Rim of Grand Canyon, a place I’ve visited and photographed more times than I can count. And while Grand Canyon Lodge is no more, the North Rim will recover, thrive, and ultimately outlast us all. Yesterday I woke to the devastating news that…

Storm Chasing Diary: More Tornadoes

A month ago I shared an image of my very first tornado. As exciting as that experience was, it turns out that was only the beginning…. When a large supercell reaches maturity, the urgency among storm chasers seems to ratchet up exponentially. So one indelible lesson from my first storm chasing experience is that there’s no time to bask in your success, no matter…

And Now for Something Completely Different…

I’ve been hyper-focused on my storm chasing images for nearly a month, and while I’m far from finished with them, I thought I’d take a brief break from those thrills to share a far more tranquil image from last month’s New Zealand workshop. What I most appreciated while processing this simple reflection, especially after being fully immersed in images of lightning and tornadoes, is…

Storm Chasing Diary: Safety, Schmafety

It feels pretty weird writing about sweltering Texas June afternoons while, only a couple of weeks later, shivering through frigid New Zealand June mornings, but welcome to my world. We’ve had some gorgeous photography Down Under again this year, and while I’d love to be able to capture, process, and blog in something closer to real time, my workshop priorities just don’t permit that….

Storm Chasing Diary: “Large Cloud in the Sky”

Because I was traveling and had unreliable connectivity, I started writing this blog in Microsoft Word rather than use the WordPress interface. When I inserted the post’s image at the top of the document, Microsoft’s unsolicited AI description simply said, “Large cloud in the sky.” And while no truer words were ever written, I think a little more context might prove enlightening. So here…

Storm Chasing Diary: My First Tornado

Everyone remembers their first time. For me, the experience was as thrilling as I’d imagined, but only lasted about a minute. (I’m talking about my first tornado—what did you think I meant?) For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to see a tornado. Over the years this desire has intensified to the point where a tornado is quite probably my most frequent…

Storm Chasing Diary: Hit the Ground Running

Supercell and Lightning, Northeast Colorado Sony α1 Sony 12-24 GM .4 seconds F/14 ISO 50 What would you think if I told you that, on my 12-day storm chasing trip in the Midwest, we drove from Colorado, to Wyoming, to Nebraska, back to Colorado, back to Nebraska, and finally to Kansas? Pretty nuts, right? Please don’t judge me when I tell you all that…

What Would Tom Cruise Do?

As you might imagine, at the bottom of Grand Canyon the sleep schedule syncs with the sun. In May, that means flopping into our cots to await the stars around 8:00 p.m., then rising around 5:00 a.m. On a typical day, the morning pace is fairly leisurely, providing time for packing up our campsites, coffee, relaxed chat, breakfast, and even a little photography. While…