The Art and Science of Storm Photography

Jeremy Bower, owner of JRBStorm Photography Author

04/03/2017 Added

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[00:00:00.571]It's a pleasure to be here.
[00:00:02.165]I am very honored to be here.
[00:00:04.265]And basically at this point we're gonna start
[00:00:06.783]this program.
[00:00:07.870]How many of you like taking weather photos (mumbles)
[00:00:12.561]a good number of ya.
[00:00:13.676]Okay, excellent.
[00:00:14.604]Then you can stay for this talk, so that's excellent.
[00:00:16.985]Excellent.
[00:00:20.003]This is a great passion of mine.
[00:00:21.639]Ken already talked about this.
[00:00:23.661]I got my meteorology degree at Ohio State.
[00:00:25.693]I've been into photography for a very, very long time,
[00:00:28.331]as well, part of this presentation is gonna show you
[00:00:31.114]a bit of that journey.
[00:00:32.847]This is a how-to presentation.
[00:00:35.407]This is going to show you tips and give you a little bit
[00:00:38.546]of insight on how to do a little bit better weather photos.
[00:00:42.169]We're gonna see if we can get you out of the auto modes
[00:00:44.538]and everything and into little bit more manual type
[00:00:46.857]work and so forth.
[00:00:48.209]And also, how to do it safely.
[00:00:51.114]That's gonna be the biggest thing, not only to get
[00:00:52.820]good weather photographs, but also without putting
[00:00:55.374]your life in danger.
[00:00:57.350]So, what is JRBStorm Photography?
[00:01:01.395]Well, JRBStorm Photography our motto is,
[00:01:03.407]it's more than just storms.
[00:01:05.417]We're into educating the public.
[00:01:07.471]We're educating the public through the use of photography
[00:01:09.680]on weather.
[00:01:11.010]As you can see here, our motto is no town too small,
[00:01:15.289]no city too large.
[00:01:17.089]We've been at several events, as Ken already mentioned,
[00:01:20.202]across the country.
[00:01:21.346]We've been to, like I said, Ohio State, Ohio University.
[00:01:25.250]In Kansas, we've been pretty much all over
[00:01:28.682]the United States.
[00:01:29.653]No, advocating our product and so forth.
[00:01:35.172]Well, this whole journey for me, like I said,
[00:01:37.996]I was, I was quite the interesting little tyke growing up.
[00:01:42.838]I had the, I was actually really scared of storms when
[00:01:46.735]I was young.
[00:01:47.720]And the next thing I know, my grandfather said,
[00:01:52.082]"Why in the world is my 12 year old grandson
[00:01:55.018]"out in the pouring down rain and lightening trying to
[00:01:57.731]"take photos with a Polaroid camera?"
[00:02:00.513]Some of you remember Polaroids, I'm sure, everything.
[00:02:03.298]Well I don't have any photographs to show you from
[00:02:05.332]that Polaroid because well none of 'em turned out.
[00:02:07.495]Big surprise there.
[00:02:09.095]But the Polaroid was kind of a, I think I've always been
[00:02:12.827]into having a challenge, you know, that's why I think
[00:02:16.707]I got into meteorology and it's just the challenge
[00:02:20.382]of the forecast and everything.
[00:02:22.591]And also, photography itself because photography,
[00:02:24.878]it's a very interesting art, it's an interesting skill
[00:02:29.663]to try to adapt to.
[00:02:31.553]And it's something I always always enjoy.
[00:02:34.010]Well, the first ever time I went out to storm chasing
[00:02:37.581]was May 29th, 2001, look at that tall drink of water,
[00:02:41.964]there on the left, great look, Mr. Backwards Hat.
[00:02:45.249]But, that was me on the first ever chase I went on.
[00:02:49.964]Back in 2001.
[00:02:52.600]In 2001 I was using Kodak disposable cameras for
[00:02:55.942]my photography and I probably wasn't maybe the smartest
[00:02:58.177]knife in the drawer, or smartest person, if you will.
[00:03:02.405]Going on there, but interesting story about that
[00:03:05.178]particular storm.
[00:03:07.099]That supercell there in the Texas panhandle.
[00:03:10.168]The number one rule, if you're gonna go out
[00:03:13.214]and storm chase, or storm spot,
[00:03:16.278]always keep the gas tank full.
[00:03:19.240](audience laughing)
[00:03:21.016]Because what happened was is that we ran out of gas.
[00:03:24.777]We got to the town of Quitaque, and the power grid was out.
[00:03:29.736]And we're out of gas.
[00:03:31.333]So needless to say we're a, tornado warning,
[00:03:34.308]we got this storm coming at us,
[00:03:36.189]and we're trying to figure out well how many of us
[00:03:38.538]can we wedge ourselves into the beer cooler?
[00:03:41.423]And we thought ourselves, eh, maybe seven,
[00:03:43.696]so that leaves five people out, so I guess we're gonna
[00:03:46.300]have to draw straws at that point.
[00:03:47.906]But, needless to say, the last thing you wanna hear
[00:03:50.822]when you are in the van, is someone with an English accent
[00:03:54.581]getting into the van sing funnel cloud straight above us.
[00:03:57.774]As I look out the window, the canopy of the gas station
[00:04:00.838]is starting to lift, and I'm thinking, ah!
[00:04:03.578]Luckily enough, the tornado touched down about a half
[00:04:05.273]a mile down the road, at that point, so we were very lucky.
[00:04:10.440]On January of 2002, I finally got into the digital era.
[00:04:14.066]Look at that beauty right there, that Sony Digital,
[00:04:16.341]that Cyber-Shot.
[00:04:18.314]Best money $400 could buy, 1.3 megapixel
[00:04:22.000]and six digital zoom.
[00:04:25.669]All this for $400 and the memory card, 16 megabyte card
[00:04:31.800]that you can get for about $75.
[00:04:34.215]Yes, that's megabyte with an M.
[00:04:36.631]It was, so that was what you can get with $400 back then.
[00:04:43.280]You know it was an interesting story doing with the
[00:04:45.247]storm chase tours, it was probably about my
[00:04:49.747]junior year at Ohio State.
[00:04:51.146]It was in May of 2004, and that previous summer
[00:04:54.886]we had a really good day in South Dakota
[00:04:57.144]with a number of tornadoes and my roommate Tom,
[00:05:00.980]took a phone call and he said, "Hey, by the way,
[00:05:03.317]"National Geographic's on the phone."
[00:05:05.361]I'm like, what Discovery Channel's too busy?
[00:05:09.018]And he's like, "No, it's National Geographic."
[00:05:12.319]I'm glad I took the call.
[00:05:14.584]It was National Geographic, they had found out I had
[00:05:16.627]some video from that day.
[00:05:18.825]They were interested in doing a international
[00:05:21.036]distribution program on storm chasing
[00:05:23.457]and we had a number of individuals on that tour
[00:05:25.385]from the UK, so they wanted some film to distribute
[00:05:28.871]for that particular program.
[00:05:31.018]And sure enough, because of that I have a film credit
[00:05:34.144]for National Geographic to my name, which is obviously cool.
[00:05:37.899]And, of course, (mumbles) I'd chased with him for a
[00:05:41.085]number of years with the UNL Vortex Intercept Team, as well.
[00:05:46.721]Well, in 2004, this is how you got weather data.
[00:05:50.095]The satellite dish on top of the van,
[00:05:52.418]and you would point that thing at the sky
[00:05:54.489]and in about 30 minutes or less you'd have your
[00:05:56.542]weather data or your pizza's free.
[00:05:58.603]And, needless to say, you would try to point that
[00:06:03.328]and be like, move to your left, move to your left.
[00:06:06.752]No your other left, other left.
[00:06:08.003]And then you pull up the data and you find out
[00:06:10.359]the data's three hours old.
[00:06:12.058]So it's not gonna do ya much good.
[00:06:14.699]But just to show ya that's how you got
[00:06:16.250]weather data back then.
[00:06:17.840]This is basically what you would end up seeing
[00:06:20.445]with the Digital Cyber-Shot, 1.3 megapixel.
[00:06:25.086]That's the kind of quality that you could get
[00:06:26.927]at that particular, with that particular camera.
[00:06:30.668]Well I finally got into SLR photography a little bit
[00:06:33.315]more advanced photography there in, oh, not quite
[00:06:36.555]10 years ago, it's gonna be going on 10 years.
[00:06:38.921]Basically it was just trying to figure out what
[00:06:42.035]I would need to get a little bit better overall quality
[00:06:44.057]of pictures, and this was where I was going with this.
[00:06:47.254]And again, it wasn't necessarily trying to get a better
[00:06:49.841]camera, expensive camera, it was just I needed something
[00:06:52.330]that was gonna fit my needs.
[00:06:55.910]Now, if you're gonna take notes, which I'm assuming
[00:06:58.561]some of you are gonna do, this is where you're gonna
[00:07:00.348]start coming in here.
[00:07:01.330]Or you can use your cameras or iPhones
[00:07:03.546]or anything like that.
[00:07:05.068]Now what are some of the basics you need to know?
[00:07:06.914]'Cause you're gonna need to know some basics
[00:07:08.263]in order to be able to do really, really good photography
[00:07:12.282]no matter what realm it is.
[00:07:14.231]And no, P on your camera does not stand for professional.
[00:07:17.370]It's for program mode, sorry.
[00:07:21.469]Everyone asks me what is going to make or break a photo.
[00:07:25.613]Any photo, whether it be, you know a photo of weather,
[00:07:28.332]whether it be a photo of you know, a portrait or anything
[00:07:32.596]like that, and usually it's gonna be one of two things.
[00:07:35.208]It's either going to be too, it's either gonna be too dark
[00:07:38.963]or it's gonna be blurry.
[00:07:40.689]So that's gonna be, so you're gonna need to know
[00:07:43.151]some basic terms.
[00:07:44.968]And your basic terms that I tell everyone you need
[00:07:46.922]to know are shutter speed, your aperture,
[00:07:50.088]and your ISO, those are the three most critical
[00:07:52.798]things that you need to know in order to be able
[00:07:55.367]to do your photography and do it well.
[00:07:58.557]Shutter speed, pretty self-explanatory.
[00:08:00.868]How long that shutter's gonna stay open for.
[00:08:03.496]The aperture, eh, just think of it as kinda like
[00:08:05.834]the iris of your eye.
[00:08:07.623]It's gonna be how much of an opening are you gonna
[00:08:10.107]have at the back of that lens to let light travel through?
[00:08:14.710]We'll talk a little bit more about aperture here
[00:08:16.361]in a few moments.
[00:08:17.572]ISO is just basically, for those of you who shot film,
[00:08:21.049]in its heyday, and everything.
[00:08:23.005]Basically you went out there and just bought 200 speed
[00:08:25.273]film, 400 speed film, and so forth.
[00:08:27.120]It's your exposure gain, that's exactly what this is.
[00:08:30.270]This is basically that in terms of a digital era.
[00:08:35.417]So how do you utilize your features on your camera
[00:08:38.419]to get a little bit better sunrise and sunset photos?
[00:08:42.957]The most important piece of equipment that you can purchase
[00:08:46.846]is not the camera or the lens, it is actually gonna be
[00:08:51.726]your tripod.
[00:08:53.377]I see so many individuals out there with great equipment,
[00:08:56.537]great camera, great lens, and then they tell me,
[00:08:59.540]I got this tripod for $40 at Walmart.
[00:09:03.121]That's great, you wanna make sure you spend a little bit
[00:09:05.971]of money, a decent amount of money on a good tripod.
[00:09:08.994]Tripods are gonna be probably what's gonna make or break
[00:09:10.959]a lot of your opportunities and so forth.
[00:09:13.520]For sunsets and sunrises aperture priority is what
[00:09:17.621]I'm going to, now on your camera, if you shoot Canon
[00:09:22.467]it's gonna be AV, if it's going to be a Nikon, it's A.
[00:09:27.487]Basically, but basically this is gonna allow you
[00:09:29.729]to choose your aperture and then the camera's going to
[00:09:32.827]take control of your shutter speed.
[00:09:34.712]You also have the ability to change your ISO using
[00:09:36.881]that particular realm as well.
[00:09:39.361]Now this is just a little chart for you.
[00:09:41.505]To show how aperture works.
[00:09:43.056]It's inverted, so as your number is lower,
[00:09:47.642]you're gonna let more light through.
[00:09:50.574]Through the back of the lens, so if you want to help
[00:09:52.295]out as far as getting your weather photographs
[00:09:54.278]and your little bit too, a little bit of a dark setting
[00:09:56.776]and everything like that, you wanna adjust that aperture.
[00:09:59.380]Try to get that down as low as possible
[00:10:01.660]in order to help ya out as far as the available light
[00:10:04.763]and everything.
[00:10:07.384]Here's an example using aperture priority mode,
[00:10:10.965]for this particular sunset photo.
[00:10:12.965]Now, one thing you can notice here.
[00:10:14.876]Oh, you can read that, F5.6.
[00:10:18.574]Someone will say, "Well if you're using aperture priority,
[00:10:20.905]"where are you gonna set that aperture?"
[00:10:22.189]I'm like, well, right to 5.6 first.
[00:10:23.947]And then kind of adjust from there.
[00:10:25.501]One thing about photography is it's trial and error.
[00:10:28.108]That's the thing, especially with digital.
[00:10:29.770]You're gonna have to try different things in order
[00:10:31.690]to get that photo, so try F5.6 first on your sunsets
[00:10:35.483]or your sunrise type photo, and then maybe adjust
[00:10:37.660]from there and see what that's gonna do for ya.
[00:10:40.156]You notice here in this case, also,
[00:10:41.417]ISO is very, very low, it's at 100.
[00:10:45.902]You could adjust that from that point, too, as well,
[00:10:48.076]if it needs to help you out.
[00:10:50.656]One other thing, if you're not familiar,
[00:10:52.549]is the filters that you can put on the front of your lenses.
[00:10:56.384]Helps you not only protect the lens from cracks or dust
[00:10:59.103]or anything like that, but there's also something called
[00:11:02.027]a graduated neutral density filter.
[00:11:04.232]And a graduated neutral density filter basically
[00:11:06.005]what that's gonna do for ya, is half of the filter
[00:11:08.569]is a little bit darkened, than the other side of it.
[00:11:11.272]So what happens is, it kinda evens out your exposure
[00:11:14.208]a little bit.
[00:11:15.450]Now you can see from this example of a sunset photo here,
[00:11:18.067]you notice the part on the left, that was not using
[00:11:20.881]a graduated neutral density filter.
[00:11:23.640]The one on the right was with.
[00:11:25.505]You notice on the portion there on the left
[00:11:27.759]where the filter wasn't used, down towards where the
[00:11:30.252]treeline would be, if you can pick that out there.
[00:11:32.593]There's a little bit of a green going on there
[00:11:34.272]on the horizon of those trees.
[00:11:36.157]That's called color fringing.
[00:11:37.728]That means you're clipping off of the colors there
[00:11:39.848]at that particular thing.
[00:11:41.255]That's what's gonna happen if you don't end up using
[00:11:42.746]a filter in that particular case.
[00:11:45.309]So I do recommend using that type of filter
[00:11:47.406]in that scenario.
[00:11:49.984]Here's another example.
[00:11:50.995]This was a, some of you probably saw this photo.
[00:11:53.015]Out in the exhibit area.
[00:11:56.876]This was actually one thing about this photo,
[00:12:00.207]is this is in early July in North Dakota.
[00:12:03.701]This is almost at 10:00 at night.
[00:12:05.889]This was actually at 9:50 p.m. to be exact.
[00:12:09.158]It's amazing that late at night,
[00:12:11.850]that far north, how much the sun still is going on
[00:12:16.548]at that point in time.
[00:12:17.863]So again, at 9:50 at night, you get this unbelievable
[00:12:21.555]cumulonimbus going up here, right at sunset.
[00:12:25.687]And it's just a gorgeous picture.
[00:12:27.066]It's probably one of my most favorite ones
[00:12:28.868]that I've taken to the date.
[00:12:30.724]How many of you have ever been to the Badlands?
[00:12:33.454]Number of you, it's a great place to go.
[00:12:35.088]If you haven't, please go there, it's an excellent,
[00:12:37.672]excellent place to go for not only photography in general
[00:12:41.790]but if you can go up there at the right time.
[00:12:43.363]I mean this is just a beautiful sunset they were
[00:12:46.077]out there last May.
[00:12:47.617]And here's another one.
[00:12:49.705]That was actually a storm, a little bit further to our
[00:12:52.226]south, and it was just absolutely gorgeous there
[00:12:56.413]right at the Golden Arrow, an arrow before sunset.
[00:12:59.895]This was in, near Chugwater, Wyoming
[00:13:02.782]in June of last year.
[00:13:05.361]One thing, tip, I throw out there, too, as well,
[00:13:07.517]is don't be afraid to try different angles.
[00:13:11.781]One thing, the most, you can,
[00:13:14.137]a lot of people, you know, they're gonna stand,
[00:13:15.452]and then they're just gonna pull up the camera
[00:13:16.688]to their face and then just take the picture.
[00:13:18.430]One thing we like to try to do is,
[00:13:19.963]try to do like different angles.
[00:13:21.621]Maybe get a little bit along ground level
[00:13:23.023]and everything.
[00:13:23.957](mumbles) gives you a little bit more dimension.
[00:13:26.057]So one of the things right off the bat I'd recommend
[00:13:27.810]is try a little bit different viewpoints
[00:13:30.706]and things like that that make your photo stand out.
[00:13:34.506]Now to kinda wrap up the sunrise and sunset,
[00:13:36.449]again, use aperture priority mode.
[00:13:39.050]Set it to 5.6, maybe adjust from there,
[00:13:41.679]sorry for you Canon users out there and everything.
[00:13:45.192]Your ISO and things like that, using that,
[00:13:47.743]Canons really struggle with the reds.
[00:13:50.108]So you're really, really going to have to
[00:13:52.301]go through and make some adjustments and things like that
[00:13:55.543]'cause Canons do struggle with the red colors big time.
[00:13:59.806]Now one part I think a lot of you are going to find
[00:14:01.795]fascinating is how to photograph lightening,
[00:14:03.588]and do it as safely as possible.
[00:14:05.793]And that's what we're gonna see here.
[00:14:07.791]Now, lightening photography again, I'm going
[00:14:10.095]to emphasize, again, good tripod.
[00:14:13.833]You're gonna need an excellent, excellent tripod
[00:14:15.791]in order to get those really good photos.
[00:14:18.624]It's also gonna help you out as far as, you know,
[00:14:20.676]stand up against the wind and everything.
[00:14:22.384]You want to make sure that you're on manual focus.
[00:14:25.938]Auto focus is not going to work with that
[00:14:29.236]because it needs to find a focus point.
[00:14:31.217]And if it's pitch black out, and you're trying to do
[00:14:33.486]lightening photography, the camera doesn't know where to
[00:14:35.622]focus at, so you really need to make sure you flip that
[00:14:39.439]lens over to manual focus in order to do that.
[00:14:45.365]One thing you're gonna do is, also, you want to set
[00:14:47.986]on manual mode, or bulb, and I'm gonna show you that
[00:14:50.848]here in a second.
[00:14:52.164]But the other key thing is you're gonna have to have
[00:14:54.157]a lot of patience.
[00:14:55.489]One example I was using out there, there's two photographs
[00:14:57.762]out there at our exhibit.
[00:15:01.069]We took in North Dakota.
[00:15:02.453]We had two photographs that came out that night
[00:15:04.872]and I took over 500.
[00:15:07.668]I kept two out of 500.
[00:15:09.762]So that's gonna take a lot a lot of patience
[00:15:11.448]in order for you to be able to get the pictures
[00:15:14.431]that you want.
[00:15:15.486]Oh yeah, just a quick thing.
[00:15:16.834]You're just gonna flip over on your lens usually,
[00:15:19.908]or maybe sometimes the camera body.
[00:15:21.773]Flip it from AF to MF, AF is auto focus.
[00:15:24.585]MF is manual focus.
[00:15:26.005]Flip that thing over to manual focus.
[00:15:28.207]And try to manually get that, you're probably want
[00:15:30.246]to try to manually adjust it to about infinity,
[00:15:33.352]or very close to infinity.
[00:15:34.946]That means you're gonna try and get as much depth
[00:15:36.529]from the foreground all the way to the background
[00:15:38.381]as far as getting those, getting that crystal clear.
[00:15:43.398]Bulb, on some cameras, if you go to the manual mode,
[00:15:48.335]that will help.
[00:15:49.913]As far as doing that, and then you just have to scroll
[00:15:51.802]through, you'll go through like 10 seconds, 20 seconds,
[00:15:54.407]30 seconds, then you'll probably reach bulb mode.
[00:15:56.879]Or sometimes on the camera itself,
[00:15:59.113]you'll have a B for bulb mode.
[00:16:00.936]You can go to that.
[00:16:02.025]The bulb means basically, you're going to open the shutter
[00:16:06.058]and that camera is going to capture all light
[00:16:08.313]and everything until you actually manually close
[00:16:10.983]the shutter, so basically that thing is going to keep
[00:16:13.735]going until you close it, or until you run out of battery.
[00:16:16.400]Whichever one comes first.
[00:16:19.261]This one, (mumbles) just a bit overexposed there.
[00:16:22.076]You notice, now one thing, right off the bat
[00:16:24.741]that was bad was, I used ISO 320 there.
[00:16:29.641]You don't want your ISO that high.
[00:16:31.301]This is 2010, I'm just kinda like learning what
[00:16:33.754]I'm doing and everything, it's like, eh.
[00:16:35.713]Not the greatest thing in the world.
[00:16:36.929]But a couple minutes later, it's like okay,
[00:16:39.046]let's adjust that a little bit.
[00:16:40.922]And, that's what you get.
[00:16:42.981]So, F9 and ISO 200, but you notice we went to F9 there.
[00:16:47.374]So that was good, so what happened was,
[00:16:49.943]first photo overexposed.
[00:16:51.755]Eh, because you probably want your
[00:16:54.729]aperture probably in that F9 to maybe F13 range.
[00:16:58.104]For something like that when it's real close.
[00:17:00.556]Now most of the time you're probably gonna be between
[00:17:01.905]5.6 and 8 for your lightening photographs.
[00:17:04.277]The second one, was right on the money.
[00:17:08.126]Now some of you may have heard this story already.
[00:17:10.334]This was June 27, 2011.
[00:17:12.585]There was as storm that formed just to our west.
[00:17:14.955]West side of Lincoln at 1:30 in the morning.
[00:17:17.100]And I set up the tripod, I put the camera out there.
[00:17:20.457]I opened the shutter, I stepped back inside real quick.
[00:17:24.269]'Bout five seconds later, there was a big flash,
[00:17:26.970]and a kaboom, I'm thinking, eh,
[00:17:29.011]this might be kind of interesting.
[00:17:30.902]I went back outside, 19 second shutter.
[00:17:33.901]And that's what I got.
[00:17:36.696]Okay, that's it, I'm done.
[00:17:38.618](audience laughing)
[00:17:41.228]Just love telling that story.
[00:17:42.290]That photo is probably one of my most prized possessions
[00:17:44.823]that I have in terms of photography 'cause that was my
[00:17:46.878]very first really good lightening photo.
[00:17:49.664]Now one thing to look right off the bat there.
[00:17:52.082]Is this is F8.
[00:17:55.712]F8 is the golden thing you want to be at.
[00:18:00.294]F8 is probably where you're gonna be at most of the time
[00:18:03.047]when you're doing your lightening photography.
[00:18:05.107]So if you're gonna get into lightening photography,
[00:18:06.861]maybe experiment with it, I say if all else fails,
[00:18:08.941]try F8, that's probably where you're gonna wanna be
[00:18:11.690]for most of your photos.
[00:18:14.537]Shutter release cable or something of that nature
[00:18:17.247]is a must.
[00:18:18.617]If you go to close the shutter on the camera,
[00:18:22.271]with the actual button itself, you're going to create
[00:18:25.843]shake on the camera and it's going to ruin your shot.
[00:18:29.365]So what you need is, you need either some type of
[00:18:31.570]wired shutter release, or a wireless one.
[00:18:35.823]What we use is this right here.
[00:18:39.503]We use what this company called Vello.
[00:18:41.596]It's a wireless trigger.
[00:18:43.176]It can actually go up to 300 feet.
[00:18:46.235]So what we can actually do is,
[00:18:47.845]we can actually be inside, we can actually be inside
[00:18:50.252]the vehicle or inside a sturdy building,
[00:18:53.187]and we can do lightening photography and we can do it
[00:18:55.290]very safely, again, you have 300 feet.
[00:18:57.963]Actually on this particular device itself,
[00:19:00.483]I've been able to use this for a year or two
[00:19:03.686]without having to change the batteries.
[00:19:06.134]So the nice thing is it's also pretty decently
[00:19:07.896]battery efficient as well.
[00:19:09.168]The Vello one is, if you go to B&H Photo,
[00:19:12.127]that's a company out of New York.
[00:19:13.887]They do sell these quite frequently on their site.
[00:19:16.748]You can probably get one for usually on sale for
[00:19:19.469]about 30 or $40.
[00:19:21.442]Usually on full retail price they're gonna go for about
[00:19:23.932]60 or 70, so just keep your eyes open
[00:19:25.590]for something like that.
[00:19:27.466]You can drop my name too, they might give you a little
[00:19:30.012]discount, well not really, but.
[00:19:33.713]Now, one thing is, when you're doing lightening photography
[00:19:37.287]you gotta be aware of some things going on.
[00:19:40.099]How many of you are spotters, by the way?
[00:19:43.915]Oh a good number of you, excellent.
[00:19:45.624]Do me a quick favor, hope you can identify.
[00:19:48.042]Got the lightening bolt there.
[00:19:49.512]What's that feature that's behind the lightening there?
[00:19:52.268]What would you call that?
[00:19:54.206]Shelf cloud, very good.
[00:19:56.658]Gold stars, okay, now.
[00:19:59.292]What do you usually associate with a shelf cloud
[00:20:01.625]most of the time?
[00:20:03.666]Who said wind?
[00:20:04.686]I heard wind, okay.
[00:20:07.123]What happens when a 70 mile an hour wind hits
[00:20:09.801]an unanchored tripod?
[00:20:11.645](audience laughing)
[00:20:16.086]Failure is the correct answer
[00:20:18.815]because the camera took flight.
[00:20:23.111]So now, there's the good news.
[00:20:25.548]The good news is, you could tell all the damage
[00:20:28.455]took place to the lens hood thank goodness,
[00:20:30.826]and it was actually down here, as well,
[00:20:33.083]on top of the cam, the camera itself was fine.
[00:20:35.544]It still worked and everything.
[00:20:37.286]That's why you also wanna use a lens hood, as well,
[00:20:40.022]because it's gonna protect your lens and everything.
[00:20:41.749]I definitely advocate using a lens hood and everything
[00:20:44.430]'cause it's gonna help protect your lens,
[00:20:46.762]so anytime you get a lens, use your lens hood please.
[00:20:50.579]And sorry, the shutter release didn't make it, sorry.
[00:20:53.985]The camera did.
[00:20:56.153]You can take lightening photos inside an urban area
[00:21:02.652]and a city dwelling and everything, but you're gonna be
[00:21:05.661]very limited as far as how long you're gonna be able
[00:21:07.730]to leave the shutter open for.
[00:21:09.574]I'd say max is gonna be about 30 seconds, give or take.
[00:21:12.920]You can see on this one, from this exact date
[00:21:15.523]two years ago, this was 32 seconds.
[00:21:18.665]So you can do it within city limits and everything,
[00:21:21.604]primarily you probably wanna be out in you know,
[00:21:24.758]as little ambient light as possible.
[00:21:27.047]So you're not interfering with your photo.
[00:21:30.351]Also, don't forget about your anvil.
[00:21:32.522]You're gonna have a lot of what's called
[00:21:34.432]cloud to cloud lightening up in the anvil,
[00:21:36.176]so make sure that you're looking, you know,
[00:21:37.892]in that area as well.
[00:21:41.507]Here's a beautiful photo.
[00:21:43.251]This was actually up in rural North Dakota.
[00:21:46.819]You get this thing called beauty light.
[00:21:49.055]You get this thing going on,
[00:21:50.437]this is probably about I'd say,
[00:21:53.411]15, 20 minutes right after the sunset and everything.
[00:21:56.673]And you got this beautiful, beautiful lightening strike
[00:21:59.843]that came down from that.
[00:22:01.033]Now a couple minutes later,
[00:22:02.125]so this is about 10 minutes later, we got this one.
[00:22:06.142]Now, who's been to North Dakota before?
[00:22:09.462]Anyone up there's been, okay, good few of you.
[00:22:11.552]North Dakota, they're catch phrase is legendary.
[00:22:15.648]I don't know what they're legendary for,
[00:22:17.146]but it's legendary.
[00:22:18.741]Well, I've got some advice for you if you go
[00:22:21.544]to North Dakota, and that is, if you go to North Dakota,
[00:22:25.396]bug spray is not gonna help you.
[00:22:28.234](audience laughing)
[00:22:32.971]This is what happens when you're out photographing
[00:22:35.754]lightening for three hours and needless to say,
[00:22:38.662]you're car headlights are attracting bugs like no other.
[00:22:43.017]Now you know what's the sad thing about this?
[00:22:44.857]This was a rental.
[00:22:48.358]Imagine returning that to the rental car company,
[00:22:50.367]it's just like, what in the world were you guys doing?
[00:22:53.820]Only if you knew.
[00:22:57.222]Well, lightening photography is like I said,
[00:23:00.005]it's a lot of trial and error.
[00:23:01.553]I mean there's things out there that you can do
[00:23:03.800]with your camera and everything.
[00:23:05.862]I mean, you can decide to close your shutter
[00:23:07.439]immediately after you see a lightening bolt come down.
[00:23:09.224]You can leave it open for you know, like I said,
[00:23:11.564]if you're out in the middle of no where you could
[00:23:13.089]leave it open for minutes on end if you really want to.
[00:23:15.737]Well, this particular morning, couple years ago,
[00:23:18.710]I was photographing lightening for over three hours.
[00:23:21.565]I managed to get a couple interesting pictures
[00:23:24.083]as you can see there.
[00:23:25.900]This was in near Wynnewood, Oklahoma.
[00:23:28.661]A couple years back.
[00:23:30.213]Again, just different, just showing ya here,
[00:23:32.015]you know different types of light and everything like that.
[00:23:34.133]And what you can actually get.
[00:23:36.453]Here's four, coming out of this particular storm.
[00:23:41.537]And then this was in Lincoln, last August.
[00:23:47.886]Now, here's where you probably want to say,
[00:23:50.086]okay, what's the bottom line here?
[00:23:51.570]So here's your settings for everything.
[00:23:53.620]Now like I said, keep your ISO to about 100.
[00:23:57.005]That's gonna be the critical thing on this
[00:23:58.646]particular one, try to keep it as low as possible.
[00:24:01.046]Like I said, most of the time, F8 but as you can see there
[00:24:04.695]you know, you can be, depending on how close it is.
[00:24:08.227]When I say intense, we're saying how close it is.
[00:24:10.689]Average that's gonna be most of the time
[00:24:12.684]and everything, where you're gonna be at.
[00:24:16.549]Again, just to kind of wrap it up here.
[00:24:18.538]Ideally, when you're photographing lightening,
[00:24:21.611]try to be as safe as possible.
[00:24:22.811]That's why if you want to use a telephoto lens,
[00:24:24.769]you know, you can be at least a couple miles away
[00:24:26.473]from the storm and you can zoom in.
[00:24:28.221]Again, wireless trigger allows you the best way
[00:24:30.895]of doing it, you can be inside the vehicle.
[00:24:32.753]You can be inside a sturdy structure
[00:24:35.029]and be perfectly safe.
[00:24:37.605]And again, manual focus and always, always, again,
[00:24:40.810]if you have trouble trying to figure it out,
[00:24:42.587]just go to F8 and adjust from there.
[00:24:46.938]Now I'll talk very, very quickly here about
[00:24:49.205]kinda segway, called in situational awareness,
[00:24:52.274]about when you're doing photographing.
[00:24:54.007]You know, the mindset is when you go out and you're
[00:24:56.431]doing weather photography, the key thing is try to always,
[00:25:00.736]if you're going out with someone and everything,
[00:25:02.785]I look at the three C's.
[00:25:04.986]I was taught this when I was in emergency management
[00:25:07.818]as an intern a number of years back.
[00:25:10.556]The three C's, it's clear, concise, calm.
[00:25:14.087]So when you're relaying information, it's whether through
[00:25:16.396]social media, or even talking on the phone,
[00:25:19.317]or texting or anything, the key thing is clear,
[00:25:21.825]be concise, and be calm about the information that
[00:25:25.083]you're sharing out there.
[00:25:27.476]The other thing is, think about your geography.
[00:25:30.188]When you're out and you're out in about taking
[00:25:32.034]photographs of storms, make sure that your road networks
[00:25:35.675]work, are you gonna have to be able to kind of get
[00:25:38.244]out of dodge, if you will.
[00:25:39.935]Are the road networks able to support that?
[00:25:42.299]Are you gonna be going like, you're in Cherry County,
[00:25:45.124]and you have a paved road every 50 miles or something
[00:25:47.665]of that nature.
[00:25:48.842]You have to take that into consideration
[00:25:50.451]before you head out.
[00:25:53.294]It absolutely amazes me when we, I talk to individuals now.
[00:25:57.652]A lot of people, the younger individuals,
[00:26:01.167]have even trouble identifying what county they live in.
[00:26:05.912]Amazingly enough.
[00:26:06.899]I say, you live in Lincoln.
[00:26:08.985]Point to Lancaster County on the map.
[00:26:11.431]And then they point like over in here somewhere.
[00:26:14.328]Something like that, so it's like,
[00:26:16.250]you're not that far west, sorry.
[00:26:18.736]That's not where you're at.
[00:26:20.613]So, this is kinda interesting.
[00:26:21.722]A lot of people don't even know that this many
[00:26:23.593]weather service offices actually service
[00:26:25.534]or here in the state of Nebraska.
[00:26:27.999]So, depending on where you're at,
[00:26:30.180]you actually might be within a different weather
[00:26:31.904]service jurisdiction and so forth.
[00:26:35.504]A vehicle is probably the worst place to be
[00:26:40.728]when you're dealing with tornadoes.
[00:26:43.679]It's actually the worst place to be.
[00:26:46.647]This is a famous video taken from the
[00:26:49.376]Pampa police department.
[00:26:52.127]This was in June 8, 1995.
[00:26:54.244]These vehicles, in this video, are being tossed.
[00:26:57.288]You can see these vehicles are being thrown
[00:26:58.911]100 feet in the air, and 100 feet away from where
[00:27:01.163]the tornado hit them at.
[00:27:02.676]So just to give you an idea, of how powerful tornadoes
[00:27:06.214]can be, just remember that when you're in a vehicle,
[00:27:09.095]you are basically in the worst place that you can
[00:27:11.378]possibly be at that point in time.
[00:27:15.117]I think a lot of you in Lincoln remember this.
[00:27:17.343]From a couple years ago, the flash flooding,
[00:27:19.870]or the flooding that took place.
[00:27:21.856]Excuse me, yeah, the guy in the truck here is in
[00:27:24.817]no man's land, he's not gonna be able to go anywhere.
[00:27:27.286]Now you can see here there's a person down here,
[00:27:29.572]with their lights on, they're gonna try to get the
[00:27:31.310]heck out of there.
[00:27:32.445]Guess what?
[00:27:33.913]You're not making it 'cause five minutes later,
[00:27:36.638]five minutes.
[00:27:39.261]That's what it looked like.
[00:27:41.895]In five minutes, look how much that water rose.
[00:27:45.208]Just that fast.
[00:27:46.499]So the one thing I cannot believe I still see
[00:27:49.125]is how many people try to attempt fate by driving
[00:27:51.562]through flooded roadways.
[00:27:53.228]It's absolutely astounding.
[00:27:55.124]Water can kill.
[00:27:57.509]It can kill, and it can kill without you even blinking.
[00:28:02.063]So just remember that in the future.
[00:28:04.339]Flash flooding is probably gonna be your worst enemy.
[00:28:07.522]We also have other things that can happen now out there.
[00:28:11.109]I mentioned in 2001, I was out storm chasing with
[00:28:14.511]a tour company, and I was in van two,
[00:28:16.907]or no, I was in van one, excuse me,
[00:28:19.286]and we had a radio communication from van two
[00:28:20.692]saying we've had an incident.
[00:28:23.994]We pull it over.
[00:28:26.057]And, I kid you not, a raven hit the windshield
[00:28:29.356]of van two, hitting this,
[00:28:32.153]so situational awareness, there's a lot of things you
[00:28:34.643]don't think about out there and this is one of them.
[00:28:38.132]You can actually see the wings of the,
[00:28:41.987]you can see the outline of it.
[00:28:43.923]Sorry to report the bird didn't make it, sorry.
[00:28:47.886]All right, so how do you make your severe weather
[00:28:50.071]photos unique?
[00:28:50.969]I think that's why a lot of you are here.
[00:28:52.436]What's some of the tips that I can give you and everything.
[00:28:55.017]Well, self explanatory, try to keep your horizon level.
[00:28:57.828]Again, tripod's gonna help you there.
[00:28:59.868]You're probably gonna, you know, a decent amount
[00:29:01.959]of depth of field and everything.
[00:29:03.341]So anywhere between 5.6 and 11.
[00:29:05.794]Of course, when you go to F11, you're gonna get a whole
[00:29:07.492]lot more depth of field going on at that point.
[00:29:12.261]If you remember that storm in 2008,
[00:29:16.050]unfortunately, it hit the boy scout camp
[00:29:18.649]and a couple unfortunately there were a couple deaths there.
[00:29:20.555]This was actually the storm that produced that tornado.
[00:29:23.883]This was about 10 minutes beforehand.
[00:29:26.399]This is for some of you, a lot of you are storm spotters,
[00:29:32.686]this is what a textbook example of an HP supercell.
[00:29:35.952]These are probably the most dangerous types of storms
[00:29:38.578]out there, and trust me, this is not the favorite storm
[00:29:42.016]of any chaser out there.
[00:29:45.097]Here's a little bit more, now this is,
[00:29:47.137]you can see here.
[00:29:48.008]You got more of a lowering, like a wall cloud
[00:29:49.891]developing on this.
[00:29:51.489]This would be your main updraft tower here.
[00:29:54.397]You got an anvil would be overhead and everything.
[00:29:57.221]So again, when you're doing storm photography.
[00:29:59.311]Remember this, you don't have to be right up on it.
[00:30:01.748]You know, you can actually be a safe way distance back
[00:30:04.541]and actually get some wonderful photos and everything.
[00:30:08.488]Here's another one from Chugwater.
[00:30:10.109]I love that mammatus that was developing there.
[00:30:12.266]This is again, getting towards sunset and everything.
[00:30:17.472]Sometimes your best zoom is your feet.
[00:30:19.864]A lot of people think they have to use,
[00:30:23.430]I got this big tele, you know, big 200 meter telephoto
[00:30:25.622]zoom and I'll just you know, do this and everything.
[00:30:28.029]Sometimes it's better just to walk across the roadway
[00:30:32.699]or whatever safely or what have you.
[00:30:34.708]And do this, well this is what can happen.
[00:30:37.086]This is,
[00:30:39.064]it's an undulatus that took place there in July
[00:30:41.704]a couple years ago.
[00:30:43.209]This is kind of like Lexington, Elm Creek area.
[00:30:45.692]Again, you can kinda, there's a road there.
[00:30:47.914]I just simply walked across the gravel road
[00:30:51.051]there to the other side
[00:30:52.251]and was able to frame my shot.
[00:30:54.664]Well also that same day, we had this, as well.
[00:30:57.588]Same type of deal.
[00:30:58.939]Kind of a, you know, unpopulated roadway and everything,
[00:31:02.582]just went across, safely, stood in the grass,
[00:31:05.823]and got that particular picture.
[00:31:07.710]Which is probably my favorite picture that I've taken
[00:31:09.599]up to this point.
[00:31:11.871]Use your foreground elements or objects for
[00:31:14.483]some interesting photos.
[00:31:18.032]Right here, this is in, there's Lamar, Colorado.
[00:31:22.049]A couple years back.
[00:31:23.479]What's going on down here?
[00:31:25.163]What do you think that is?
[00:31:26.772]You think that's a wall cloud?
[00:31:27.884]Who thinks that's a wall cloud?
[00:31:28.907]Anyone think that's a wall cloud?
[00:31:29.829]Maybe a couple of you?
[00:31:30.702]Who thinks that's scud?
[00:31:33.118]Scud winds?
[00:31:34.303]Yeah, we couldn't really tell at that point,
[00:31:38.028]but when it, it was very difficult to tell at that
[00:31:40.757]point, we were also in a data area where we didn't
[00:31:44.031]really have any really good data, so we were basically
[00:31:46.046]going all visual and everything.
[00:31:47.612]We really weren't able to see what was going on.
[00:31:49.487]We were a couple miles back and there weren't really
[00:31:50.869]a whole lot of good roads to get towards it.
[00:31:53.009]But, it looked like it could potentially you know,
[00:31:56.180]eventually maybe a few minutes later be a true wall cloud
[00:31:58.287]and everything but at that point, it was kinda difficult
[00:32:01.621]to tell but it looks like it was mostly scud,
[00:32:03.593]going on there.
[00:32:04.955]Now at this point, you know, you can use roadways
[00:32:07.667]and everything, too, as well.
[00:32:08.839]You got this skinny looking wall cloud there.
[00:32:11.781]It's there on the left side of the road.
[00:32:14.460]Here's this one, this one was in Colorado, as well,
[00:32:17.855]just using a fence post or fence to kinda give your
[00:32:20.756]photo just a little bit different feel for it
[00:32:22.758]and everything, again,
[00:32:24.202]I'm more, I'm about six foot tall, so I kinda, you know,
[00:32:28.212]I kinda crouched down a little bit to get a little
[00:32:30.917]bit more of a horizon shot there.
[00:32:34.993]And then, if you're traveling with you know,
[00:32:37.077]your friends, or whatever, you know,
[00:32:39.117]you can capture some interesting keepsakes
[00:32:42.106]and everything by doing something like that.
[00:32:46.335]A lot people love this.
[00:32:47.628]If you've ever been out to Chimney Rock,
[00:32:50.168]a lot of you have, and talk to me about this.
[00:32:52.590]A lot of people just absolutely love that photo.
[00:32:54.480]Again, take your time to compose.
[00:32:55.700]Composition is a big, big thing here.
[00:32:58.198]You know, learn how to take that extra minute or two
[00:33:01.071]if it's available to compose your photo, and so forth.
[00:33:05.725]Monochrome is something that, black and white photography,
[00:33:08.763]something I just know started to kind of experiment
[00:33:10.500]with here in the last, oh, few years and so forth.
[00:33:13.179]This was extra credit points for any of you who
[00:33:16.436]know where New Leipzig, North Dakota is.
[00:33:19.146]That's out in pretty much southwest North Dakota.
[00:33:21.789]Got a little bit of a split here going on
[00:33:24.789]that particular storm.
[00:33:25.784]You notice those two rain shafts, one off to the right
[00:33:27.829]and one off to the left.
[00:33:30.216]This is a hail shaft in north central Kansas
[00:33:33.813]a couple years back.
[00:33:35.360]Yeah, hail shafts, yeah.
[00:33:36.724]Seems to work 'cause obviously it's gonna be white
[00:33:39.104]so if you do a little bit black and white edit on that
[00:33:41.288]that's gonna be fantastic at that point.
[00:33:44.355]My wife and I, and our friend were in El Reno
[00:33:48.520]for that particular storm.
[00:33:50.423]If you're not familiar, this was the 2.6 mile wide tornado.
[00:33:54.952]That unfortunately, we lost three very dear people
[00:33:58.894]in the storm research community, due to this.
[00:34:03.296]This particular storm we are approximately about
[00:34:06.664]two or three miles about south, eh, maybe southeast
[00:34:09.652]of the storm at this point.
[00:34:11.425]Taking this photo and this photo and you can see,
[00:34:13.805]this whole thing practically this whole meso of looking
[00:34:16.894]at it, I'm telling them, it looks like this whole thing
[00:34:19.444]is on the ground.
[00:34:20.562]It's hard to see, but down in here, you can kinda see
[00:34:25.131]this grass is basically completely bent over.
[00:34:28.072]And it's leaning towards the storm.
[00:34:30.198]The inflow of this was probably somewhere
[00:34:32.754]in the neighborhood of probably about 30 or 40 knots
[00:34:35.139]and we're pretty good distance away from it.
[00:34:38.208]So I don't really need any more knowledge or anything
[00:34:41.131]like that saying, okay, this is probably a very,
[00:34:43.217]very violent tornado.
[00:34:44.479]What ended up happening was, we actually got a couple
[00:34:46.846]photos of this storm.
[00:34:48.107]We paralleled it for maybe another about half an hour,
[00:34:50.743]and then as we're getting closer to the Oklahoma City
[00:34:53.505]metro area, I said, that's it, we're dropping south.
[00:34:55.310]We dropped south, we got the heck out of Dodge.
[00:34:59.220]We ended up staying in southwest Oklahoma that night.
[00:35:05.478]Now what you need to do is you also need to help
[00:35:07.433]as far as exposing for the sky.
[00:35:09.304]Now what I mean by that is,
[00:35:10.879]the sky itself can actually create a situation where
[00:35:14.677]your photo is gonna be a little bit uneven as far as
[00:35:16.789]having an even exposure.
[00:35:18.998]So one thing to do is, kinda point your camera
[00:35:21.708]more towards and expose for the sky,
[00:35:23.957]so kinda you know, point the, how your auto focus
[00:35:26.702]point, kinda focusing in on that, the sky,
[00:35:31.141]as far as that goes, to help you even that out.
[00:35:33.714]So here's an example of some mammatus clouds.
[00:35:36.284]Back there a couple years ago.
[00:35:38.821]Again, pointing the, the auto focus point is more
[00:35:41.144]towards the mammatus itself, and then maybe going back
[00:35:45.833]through and editing the photo later on to kinda
[00:35:47.808]help even out the horizon and everything.
[00:35:52.119]Mammatus clouds can be very, very beautiful.
[00:35:54.262]Seeing them, seeing them up close.
[00:35:57.074]They're great displays.
[00:35:58.522]Mammatus, of course, themselves are usually gonna be
[00:36:00.562]found underneath the anvil there, actually themselves
[00:36:02.671]perfectly harmless, but they can let, you know,
[00:36:05.227]there's probably something going on in the vicinity.
[00:36:09.811]How many of you remember Mother's Day
[00:36:11.426]a couple years back?
[00:36:12.628]This was May 11, 2014.
[00:36:15.570]This was actually on highway six, we are looking due west
[00:36:20.466]at this storm, it just crossed the road,
[00:36:23.198]and it's very difficult to see.
[00:36:25.046]It's probably gonna be back here in the rain.
[00:36:27.819]Right in here.
[00:36:29.314]That is where that tornado was at.
[00:36:31.929]One thing that happened was,
[00:36:33.583]is as we're sitting there,
[00:36:36.213]we had this gentleman pull up to us,
[00:36:38.354]and he's like, "What's going on?"
[00:36:40.358]And I said, there's a tornado that just crossed
[00:36:41.661]down there near Cordova, and he said, I have family
[00:36:44.113]that lives in Cordova.
[00:36:46.003]And I said, okay, so here's what I need you to do for
[00:36:48.210]me right now.
[00:36:49.342]I said, I know you are, you know, duly, you know,
[00:36:53.145]obviously frantic and everything.
[00:36:54.712]But I need you to stay right here with me for five minutes.
[00:36:58.994]Because we need to let that thing cross the road,
[00:37:02.290]get out of the way, so you can go down there
[00:37:04.555]and see what's going on.
[00:37:06.215]Basically at that point my biggest concern for him
[00:37:08.173]is make sure you stay right here, 'cause I don't need
[00:37:10.212]you going down that road, and getting yourself
[00:37:12.777]obviously in big time trouble.
[00:37:16.871]This was a, downdraft we saw here off of our apartment
[00:37:19.999]balcony there a couple years ago.
[00:37:23.607]Got this, coming down here and hitting the ground,
[00:37:26.697]spreading out.
[00:37:27.962]I posted that photo on Twitter and then the Omaha office
[00:37:32.986]asked me, "Do you have the wind speed on that?"
[00:37:35.196]And I said, eh, this is what I think it is.
[00:37:37.023]And they said, "Yeah, that's good information to know,
[00:37:39.651]"thank you for posting that."
[00:37:43.001]Now, there's a fine line between editing
[00:37:46.045]and what's called Photoshopping your photos.
[00:37:50.125]I encourage people to edit their photos.
[00:37:52.695]'Cause that's how you're going to get good quality
[00:37:54.250]looking stuff that you can put out there,
[00:37:57.682]you know for your friends to see,
[00:37:58.964]and so forth, but there's a fine line.
[00:38:03.229]This is a standard edit of a photo that we took
[00:38:05.488]there in North Dakota a couple years ago.
[00:38:07.436]That's standard editing, right there.
[00:38:10.436]This is slightly an edited version.
[00:38:12.981]Now, just a quick thing.
[00:38:14.899]You're looking at those two photos.
[00:38:16.103]Just out of curiosity, this is just as interesting
[00:38:17.970]for me, how many preferred photo one?
[00:38:20.592]Just out of, okay, okay.
[00:38:22.639]How many prefer photo two?
[00:38:24.448]Okay, so, it's your interpretation, it really is.
[00:38:28.788]I mean, what do you want to do?
[00:38:32.373]What do you want to get out of the photo?
[00:38:34.053]I mean, do you want to post something that's more
[00:38:37.168]replicating of what you actually saw,
[00:38:39.165]or do you want to go with maybe a little bit
[00:38:40.794]enhanced version?
[00:38:41.909]Basically, I'm not here to judge.
[00:38:44.224]That's not my thing, it's whatever your style is.
[00:38:46.482]If that's your style, and you want to go a little bit
[00:38:48.184]more on the editing and so forth, that's all fine.
[00:38:51.476]That's, if that's your preference, that's what you do.
[00:38:55.316]Now, in conclusion, one thing,
[00:38:58.007]JRBStorm Photography.
[00:39:00.064]You know, in 2012 when my wife and I created this,
[00:39:04.021]JRBStorm, JRB is my initials.
[00:39:07.998]I'm Jeremy Ray Bower.
[00:39:10.589]I couldn't do Jeremy Bower Photography because that was
[00:39:13.007]already licensed to someone in Canada,
[00:39:14.988]so copyright things going on, so I can't do that.
[00:39:17.976]So I had to do JRBStorm.
[00:39:19.662]One thing I've never told anyone though
[00:39:21.028]is what does the storm part mean?
[00:39:25.410]It's actually an acronym.
[00:39:27.204]'Cause we don't have enough acronyms in the field
[00:39:29.695]of meteorology.
[00:39:33.216]So storm.
[00:39:36.902]We already discussed this, S is for situational awareness.
[00:39:39.752]I think we've already covered that pretty well.
[00:39:42.336]So S is for situational awareness.
[00:39:45.383]T, target carefully.
[00:39:46.980]What do you mean by that?
[00:39:48.428]As I kinda touched on a little bit,
[00:39:50.785]if you're unfamiliar with a particular area that
[00:39:52.710]you're going into, if you've never been to North Dakota
[00:39:55.791]or whatever it is, are you comfortable going there?
[00:39:59.549]Are you comfortable pursuing storms in that area?
[00:40:02.418]So this is something that you have to ask yourself
[00:40:04.622]as far as available road networks and things like that.
[00:40:06.810]Are you comfortable going into that area?
[00:40:08.773]So that's what I mean by target carefully.
[00:40:12.079]Obey the laws.
[00:40:13.220]Simple, if you're, you know,
[00:40:17.339]seat belts, going the speed limit, everything like that.
[00:40:20.495]Obey the laws.
[00:40:24.117]Respond accordingly.
[00:40:25.018]What do I mean by that?
[00:40:26.285]Respond accordingly is, you know, when you're dealing
[00:40:28.455]with thunderstorms and tornadoes,
[00:40:30.839]they're gonna go through communities.
[00:40:32.951]They're gonna go through communities
[00:40:34.234]and they're going to hurt people and worse.
[00:40:37.485]Some people go in, and they're gonna help.
[00:40:41.377]They're gonna give medical aid.
[00:40:43.188]That's fine.
[00:40:44.285]Here's my concern.
[00:40:46.842]At some point, my concern is, someone's gonna try to
[00:40:49.026]respond and try to help, and they don't see a power line
[00:40:52.521]lying on the ground, and that's it for them.
[00:40:56.274]It's very easy to get caught up in the moment.
[00:40:59.124]It's not a criticism or anything like that.
[00:41:01.954]It can happen, so make sure when you respond,
[00:41:04.751]make sure you respond accordingly.
[00:41:05.774]Are you not comfortable doing that?
[00:41:08.432]Then you know what?
[00:41:09.396]Do the next best thing, call it in.
[00:41:11.450]Say, hey, we've got a bad situation at this intersection.
[00:41:13.869]Or this road, or whatever, respond with how you wanna do.
[00:41:16.697]The last one is M, and what does M stand for?
[00:41:21.711]You know what?
[00:41:23.159]When you're out there,
[00:41:25.130]it's so easy to get caught up in the moment.
[00:41:27.501]It's very, very easy to get caught up in the moment
[00:41:29.405]and saying, you know, I'm worried about getting
[00:41:31.462]this out on social media.
[00:41:33.546]And I'm worrying about how this is gonna happen,
[00:41:35.953]and how the storm's gonna evolve,
[00:41:37.596]and what's this next system gonna do and everything.
[00:41:39.351]A lot of that is beyond your control.
[00:41:43.541]You cannot control the weather.
[00:41:45.106]You cannot control where the weather's gonna go
[00:41:46.600]and where that's gonna happen.
[00:41:48.246]The only thing that you can do.
[00:41:50.693]The only thing that you can do is manage yourself.
[00:41:54.003]That's the only thing that you can do out there.
[00:41:57.084]You are responsible for your actions,
[00:41:59.742]and what you do, so this is very, very clear
[00:42:02.934]is that you have to manage yourself.
[00:42:05.632]You are in control of your own actions out there.
[00:42:09.395]My thing is, and why we do this and why we try to
[00:42:12.677]educate people and we go and do events like this
[00:42:15.266]is very simple, I love meteorology, I love photography.
[00:42:18.836]I love showing these images and everything like that
[00:42:21.257]to everyone, but the bottom line is,
[00:42:23.692]no storm is worth risking your life.
[00:42:26.453]If you're not comfortable going out there,
[00:42:28.488]if you're not comfortable not doing certain things.
[00:42:31.129]If there's a situation that you're not comfortable with,
[00:42:34.333]guess what?
[00:42:37.125]Tomorrow's another day.
[00:42:41.646]One final thought.
[00:42:43.523]You know, this has been an incredible journey for me.
[00:42:45.925]You know, I've been, like I said, storm chasing
[00:42:47.531]now for 11 years.
[00:42:49.896]And let there be no light.
[00:42:56.210]You didn't know I had that kind of power, huh?
[00:42:59.087]But, basically, you know, to share a very quick story.
[00:43:03.690]You know, five years ago, my grandfather passed away.
[00:43:10.228]My grandfather was the one that was generous enough
[00:43:14.355]to let me use his Polaroid camera and everything.
[00:43:17.953]And he said, he was always encouraging of me of
[00:43:20.569]you know what, never quit.
[00:43:23.066]Always keep pursuing your dreams and everything like that.
[00:43:26.125]About a month before he died, we talked on the phone.
[00:43:29.756]And he said, (mumbles) I'm not sure, you know,
[00:43:34.497]where I'm at with my life and everything.
[00:43:35.796]I don't know how things are gonna go and so forth.
[00:43:37.614]And he's like, "Don't worry about that.
[00:43:40.580]"Just focus on what you're doing.
[00:43:43.521]"And sooner or later things are gonna happen."
[00:43:45.654]And I said, well what's, how do I know if I'm
[00:43:48.485]gonna be a success?
[00:43:50.359]And he's just like, "There are no, two things."
[00:43:53.867]That you know that you're a success.
[00:43:55.975]One, you wake up every morning, and you're happy
[00:43:58.494]about what you do on a daily basis.
[00:44:00.942]If you're happy, and you go in,
[00:44:03.262]and you're happy with what you do,
[00:44:04.908]that's a success.
[00:44:07.326]I said, well, what's the second thing?
[00:44:08.985]The second thing is, he's like, "Somehow, some way when
[00:44:12.580]"this is all said and done, you can say that you've
[00:44:14.485]"made a difference, that's a success, as well."
[00:44:17.555]Those two things I've kept with me for a very,
[00:44:20.106]very, very long time.
[00:44:21.568]Well, this kinda translated into what I'm doing now.
[00:44:26.894]I never thought I'd get to this level.
[00:44:29.166]When I first started doing this,
[00:44:30.580]it's like there's no way I was gonna get to this level.
[00:44:33.489]And the next thing I know this is so surreal for me.
[00:44:36.530]Standing here and I'm like, I'm speaking at a
[00:44:41.569]symposium and the guy that's gonna come on after me,
[00:44:45.409]Tim Marshall is a guy that I looked up to for a very
[00:44:48.222]long time, it's like this is like borderline surreal.
[00:44:51.809]It's like east central Ohio boy ascended to become this.
[00:44:56.314]So, to kinda quit flapping my gums, as my wife would
[00:45:00.766]probably tell me over here, is that, you know,
[00:45:06.239]last year and I went out and I saw this beautiful
[00:45:08.542]double rainbow, the storm had just passed to my east
[00:45:11.388]and I went outside, I'm like, oh this is great.
[00:45:14.888]Sunlight's coming down on it.
[00:45:17.191]Looks great.
[00:45:19.045]Took a couple more photos.
[00:45:21.334]Key thing to end this presentation on.
[00:45:24.313]If you're passionate about something,
[00:45:25.758]whether it be weather, whether it be photography,
[00:45:27.902]or something in your life, you're passionate about it.
[00:45:30.626]You don't have to apologize for anything.
[00:45:33.572]But the one thing I always tell ya,
[00:45:36.383]is never quit, never quit at all.
[00:45:39.517]Because you never know what surprise
[00:45:42.360]might come your way.
[00:45:49.584]Didn't quite get the third rainbow,
[00:45:51.031]but we got the double and that lightening went across it.
[00:45:55.035]I tell ya what.
[00:45:56.510]I posted that thing, and I kid you not.
[00:45:59.292]I had to get off social media for about a day and half
[00:46:02.697]because I couldn't get on there without something,
[00:46:04.455]it was like, I always wondered what it felt like
[00:46:07.500]to have a photo go viral.
[00:46:09.371]That photo went viral at that point.
[00:46:12.448]But the key thing is again,
[00:46:13.644]that's my mantra.
[00:46:15.895]If you follow me, you see it all the time.
[00:46:18.382]Never quit, those are the words my grandfather
[00:46:20.552]bestowed upon me, and those are the words I bestow
[00:46:22.592]upon you here today.
[00:46:24.842]So that is my presentation.
[00:46:26.802]Thank you so much for coming.
[00:46:28.874]Email address, feel free to email me.
[00:46:31.590]You got questions or anything like that,
[00:46:33.467]you can see it up there JRBStorm@gmail.com.
[00:46:36.526]Please keep the hate mail to a minimum, please.
[00:46:40.858]Okay, I have,
[00:46:43.723]I have (speaking off microphone).
[00:46:46.109]I have family that can send me that, so,
[00:46:49.312]yeah, I know.
[00:46:50.942]But anyway,
[00:46:52.555]please visit our table if you haven't already.
[00:46:54.089]We have prints for purchase.
[00:46:55.487]I mean all of our prints are $10 a piece today,
[00:46:58.427]so if you wanna take home a piece of JRBStorm Photography
[00:47:01.588]for 10 bucks, hey, by all means, come by.
[00:47:03.608]We also have business cards with our website info
[00:47:05.730]and everything.
[00:47:06.897]We should have the photos up on JRBStorm Photography,
[00:47:10.758]so if you wanna go check out your first ever
[00:47:14.392]weather fest selfie, go on there, share it,
[00:47:17.645]or whatever, tag yourself in it, do with it what you want.
[00:47:22.035]Social media, you can go on JRBStorm Photography.
[00:47:24.876]You notice there's a JRBStorm thing going on there,
[00:47:27.507]so look us up.
[00:47:28.946]In the meantime guys, thank you so much.
[00:47:31.446]This has been great, and thank you for being such
[00:47:33.911]a captive audience.
[00:47:34.887](applause)

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The Art and Science of Storm Photography

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