Thanks, Sumpin! :) I consider doing that sometimes, it's just that once you start getting into that resolution, you gotta worry about people ripping the photo off and selling them to stock agencies. Hollingshead, another Nebraskan weather photog, has had that happen to him a lot, and it's only as he's gone pro and had access to the lawyerpaults at Getty and Corbis that he's gotten it to stop.

bamtam700:cool pics. That's the one thing I like about kansas, the badass spring weather.

Yeah, it's hard for me to admit, as I thought I'd never find a more beautiful place in the world for storms to roam than Nebraska, but Kansas in Spring really is something special beyond words.

E-Brake:Amazing pics as usual! Thanks for sharing. One of your pics from a month or two ago is my work desktop :)


Thanks! :) You just reminded me... it's time to change mine!

That shot's awesome, YoungSweedishBlonde! That's the shot that I kinda wanted to get, but couldn't get east of the storm fast enough. :) (I don't care what the weather service said -- that storm was moving waaay faster than 15 miles per hour!) Give Darin my congrats!

Thanks, Savinkov! Yeah, I grew up in Iowa, and the threat of tornadoes were something you just learned to live with. Most people who come to visit me here in Nebraska always wonder how the heck we can live with the worry of having some random tornado asplode our homes. Some of these folks live on some of the largest fault lines in the country, so I think think they're nuts. ;)

markie_farkie: I'm almost positive that you'll love that lens. It feels like a huge gamble when you first get it because it's such a specialty lens, but it opens up the door to a whole new type of photography. I've always loved other people's ultrawide photography, so that lens has made me feel right at home. I do find that people seem to have strong opinions about it -- another photo friend of mine can't *stand* how much it distorts things at the edges, whereas I love the distortion.

Automatic Jack:Fascinating and beautiful images chakalakasp.
I would love to be able to take pictures like that but
1) I have no talent for it.
2) Here in the UK, the most dramatic shots would be of a moderate drizzle.
3) I'm far too cheap to buy a decent camera and lens. What are you using

Hey, if you really do love photography, learning it is a lot easier than you'd think! 6 years ago I couldn't shoot for crap. I just picked up a SLR camera, read a lotta books, and took a lotta pictures. Eventually it all just starts clicking. :) You don't need a great camera setup to take great pictures -- a $150 Pentax K-1000, coupled with the right lens and the right slide film, can match the quality of a $3000 digital camera, so long as you know what you're doing. It's just that digital makes life so much easier that a lotta photographers, especially photojournalists, are switching to it. I use a Canon 20D for digital and a Canon EOS-3 for film. The lens for all the photos in this post was a Canon 10-22 f/3.5-4.5. Oh -- and yeah, the UK sucks for weather photography (usually), though they do have their moments. I actually know over the net a couple guys from the UK who fly out here every year right about now to chase storms. But the UK actually has storm chasing clubs, if you can believe it. And heck, you guys have so much cool architecture, who needs a supercell to keep their camera busy? ;)

Yep, you're dead on, Ian -- and actually, usually as a rule I don't even use the clone tool, or at least, when I do, I usually mention that I do. IMG9248 had a tiny touch of clone tool in the lower left corner, but it was so minor it didn't bother me. My toning is somewhat artistic, but I'm mostly just trying to get the photo to what I "saw" when I was there. Photographs, especially digital photographs, can only capture a very limited range of dynamic information when compared to the human eye and brain. Actually, if the human eye were a purchasable "camera", and were priced solely on performance, it would probably cost many tens of thousands of dollars, as it does a much better job of capturing detail and tonal range than anything that humans can make.

Liam2000:Photoshop + World Builder = these pics. The pic above with the blue and purple colors gives that away.
/Not tryin to be "that guy" just callin what I see

Lol, that's a new one! :) I don't blame you for thinking that though, as nature can get pretty unbelieveable sometimes. The weird thing about living on the plains is that to some degree you kinda get used to it, and you forget that it looks mindblowing to people who don't live out here.

Here's a pic of my chase partner takin' his turn at the wheel before the core of the storm slid north over the highway and we had to punch that bad-boy. (He's not actually an alien, the distortion is caused by the lens. :))

[image from img210.imageshack.us too old to be available]