Stormchasing 2011

I joined Eric and Michael Carlson on three more chases for the 2011 season, and we still didn't get any tornadoes. Nonetheless, there were some cool cloud structures and I ended up with several neat photos. Being very new to this hobby, I think I was less disappointed with the lack of tornadoes than both Eric and Michael!

June 1
Emily was super excited to go on a real chase with us since Denmark's weather hardly compares to what we have here. The target was between La Junta and Las Animas. The main cell we followed was looking good for awhile, then fell apart out of nowhere. Nothing else really happened after that, so we headed back home early. Still, Emily thought it was fun to see what it's like to be in a real stormchasing vehicle!

This was the height of the excitement

Eric and Michael watching the storm die off

June 19
A north east Colorado day with high potential. Spent some time on a storm up North in the Pawnee Grasslands before going back to Fort Morgan in search of something better. We tried to catch up with a gigantic supercell out East, but gave up shortly after passing the Nebraska border as it was still too far away and getting dark. Back in Fort Morgan we stopped at some strange low clouds nearby. It had no recognizable structure in the mess, but we barely caught a glimpse of a land spout for a few seconds at dusk.

Nothing happened until after noon.  But I made friends with some locals.

Michael and Pawnee Grasslands storm

Large cell growing on the Nebraska border

June 25
There was an excellent setup in Nebraska / South Dakota, and we were just desperate enough to go that far! The first day had some decent clouds but nothing great, and was primarily just driving to get into position for the exciting 'moderate' outlook on the 26th. We camped overnight in Chadron State Park, which put us in perfect position in the morning! Nice place, but the best part was the fireflies.

Michael and Eric near Alliance, NE

A few neat storms in the afternoon

On the way to Chadron, NE

Cells started firing as early as 9 am. We eventually followed the storms over to Valentine and the main event happened around 1 pm. A lot of chasers were disappointed that the huge cell turned outflow dominant, but I was pretty excited with the photos I got and amazed with how green the cloud was. Everyone began migrating towards a new and very good looking cell East of Thedford, but it fell apart rather early. Went down to North Platte and headed for home by late afternoon.

The most interesting storm I've seen so far

Outflow dominant storm near Valentine, NE.  A favorite photo of the season.

South Dakota

My good friend Emily was visiting from Denmark for a few weeks this summer. I told her we could go on a real American road trip anywhere she wanted. Where to? Mount Rushmore and South Dakota!  The trip was 7 days, 2,000 miles, and ended up being only $200 each.
We had no plans, no reservations, and tons of fun!

May 25
Eric, Emily, and I left on the 25th. We drove up to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and made a side trip to see the state capitol. Just for amusement. Wasn't hard to spot since it looks so much like Colorado's with the gold dome. Most interesting part is there's all sorts of free parking right next to it. Quite the unpopulated state.

Wyoming state capitol

Later we drove through Lusk, and on to Custer, South Dakota, and spent the next three days in a tipi. Awesome and unique, but cold!

The Tipi

May 26
Went down to tour Wind Cave, then drove back up through Custer State Park. Probably one of the most amazing state parks ever.
Next was Mt. Rushmore! ...then Custer State park again!

Mt. Rushmore

Custer State Park

That evening we 'attempted' to make snobrød over the fire. It's basically Denmark's version of a campfire tradition, like American s'mores. But instead, it's a bread you wrap around sticks. And we had some measuring difficulties... not nearly enough flour.

Needs more flour... A LOT more flour

May 27
Went to Bear Country USA in the morning, which is basically a drive-through wildlife park or zoo. They're most famous for the huge collection of bears, which live in the same pen as the wolves. The two species weren't always getting along real well, and it took awhile to get past all the bears pacing in front of the exit.

Drive slow!

Little black bears everywhere

We later headed to Hill City, and had lunch at the Bumpin Buffalo Bar and Grill. Quite American, and really good.
Afterward, Eric had the joy of driving down Iron Mountain Road, and through the pennicles side of Custer State park. Did I mention what a great park it is?

Iron Mountain Road

Custer State Park... again!

Later that night we stopped by the store and got some ingredients to have a dinner of snobrød (success!) and hotdogs over the fire.

Now this is what snobrød should look like

May 28
Emily's last request in the Black Hills was the Alpine Slide, which opened for the summer the morning we left!

Up to the Alpine Slide

Off to the badlands. Having no reservations the whole trip, we were a little iffy about camping in the park since it was so cold the night before, so the next option we found was an original homestead from the 1880's. It was rustic, but really cool. We would have stayed there if it weren't for the forecasted below 0 temp and lots of rain, the car probably would've gotten stuck down there with all the rain we did get.

No pluming, no heating, quite original

We checked out the only other option nearby, the KOA. Their small huts were the same price, and they had cheap food there as well as minigolf! Good deal.

Mini Golf

Headed into the badlands that evening for an amazing sunset.

Badlands at Sunset

May 29
If the weather was more bearable we would have spent more time in the Badlands, but as it was we moved onwards. At the touristy 1880's town we had breakfast in an old train car, and Emily enjoyed the museum.

Off to see the sights of middle America

We headed down to Valentine, Nebraska, and drove around Niobrara to find Emily a waterfall. While there we decided Nebraska wasn't an interesting enough drive home. So, how about we go to Kansas? Being a spontaneous decision, we got to Hays by 1am, then stayed up even later to watch Twister!

Emily and her waterfall

May 30
Spent the day doing some geocaches in Russell. It was pretty interesting since we didn't have time to do any Russell ones while Eric and I were there over spring break. Much larger town than I ever thought, and it has an actual downtown area! Though its main attraction is being the boyhood home of Bob Dole.

Russell has a downtown!  And a museum!

There was an amazing wind and it was extremely hot and humid all day. Completely opposite from South Dakota. The sunset over a wheat field was really amazing, and as the evening storms developed, Eric brought us on a mini-storm chase on the way back. Emily was fascinated by the storms, though a little frightened at first. She said even those daytime winds would have been severe weather for Denmark.

Re-visiting a favorite photo location

Sunset in Kansas.  It's really not such a bad state!

The storm approaches

May 31
Eric's brother offered to take us all on a storm chase the next day, so we left Russell a day early.

Stormchasing! (May 18, 2011)

Finally, my first storm chase! Tagging along in the Michael Carlson Photography mobile was Eric Carlson, Eric Haave, and I. This ended up being THE storm of the day, since every other setup was a bust (a lot of chasers were waiting out in Oklahoma).

Starting out, I couldn't tell what was so exciting about the sky. It just seemed like a typical cloudy day. However, just as Michael and Eric had forecasted, it gradually transformed.

Meeting other chasers on the road, and discussing that somehow interesting sky above

As far as stormchasing goes, it was relatively close to home. We went from Denver to Ordway (meandering through the plains), then caught and followed the supercell storm from Ordway to Cheyenne Wells, then back to Denver through Limon. But it was still almost continuous driving for 12 hours.

The 'dome cam' on the roof, for live video streaming

The supercell was incredible. The experienced chasers were all amazed at how strong the inflow winds were. This magnificent, breathing cloud was pulling air in so strongly, that it was pelting us with massive amounts of tumbleweeds!

A panorama of the full supercell - note the bend of the grass, its alive!

Tumbleweeds gather by the car

Michael got top live video streamer of the day! (www.tornadovideos.net > live video). Also while on this storm, they recognized someone from the weather channel, and a stormchasing tour vehicle from Texas.

A stormchasing tour van unloads its collection of eager photographers into a field

Another stop and view

So technically, I did see a tornado! But I didn't know it at the time. It was a little, short-lived "gustnado" pretty far away. Having never been on a chase before, I thought it was going to develop at least a little more before they would declared it a tornado!

A portion of the supercell - gustnado in the middle of the orange area

Yup, that is the 'gustnado,' a type of tornado

The last wall cloud falls apart, time to head for home

San Fransisco - Film Trip (March 28-31, 2011)

The week after Spring Break I went for another vacation instead of going back to school. I was in need of more hours for my internship at Robin Bond Media (www.robinbondmedia.com) and what better way than a trip to California?

The final videos:

Rodney Strong:
http://www.robinbondmedia.com/videos/rodney-strong-vineyards-pacific-gas-and-electric-climatesmart-series

Mrs. Grossmans:
http://www.robinbondmedia.com/videos/mrs-grossmans-stickers-pacific-gas-and-electric-climatesmart-series


3/28 - Monday morning Robin and I met Mike the DP at the airport, and took the flight to San Francisco. We rented a minivan and headed off to Healdsburg, stopping at in-n-out burger on the way. After checking into the hotel we went over tomorrow’s plan and all the equipment Mike brought. He brought a 5D Mark II for the video (requested by the client), two lights, a bounce, rails, a Panasonic hvx 200, and a GoPro. Then we went to dinner at the Healdsburg Bar and Grill. As it was getting dark I tried for a geocache down the street (GCB25A) but didn't find it.

Equipment crossing the Golden Gate Bridge

3/29 - Tuesday was the first filming day, at Rodney Strong vineyards. We got there at 8am and took a quick tour of the area to familiarize ourselves with the location and choose where to do the interviews. There was Robin Mike and I, Andy the soundman who drove up from south of San Fran, a Rodney Strong rep, and a rep from Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). The first interview was with Ryan who is the horticulturist for the vines. Next was the owner of Rodney Strong, Tom, and we interviewed him in the higher priced oak barrel aging room. Finally it was Joel of public relations in the tasting room.

Filming Ryan the horticulturist at Rodney Strong Vineyards

Interview with Tom Klein the owner

In the tasting room

Rodney Strong wines

After lunch, back in the tasting room we shot some b-roll, then onto the bottling plant (which I held the LED light for since it was very dark). After that were the two barrel rooms and the challenge of showing the motion detection lights turning on. Finally we went over the barrel room to shoot the solar panels and an establishing shot at the entrance.

Bottling area

Aging room

It was already 4 pm by this time, but the Rodney Strong rep and Ryan led us several miles down the road to Rockaway vineyards because they said it was much more scenic for outside shots. We went to the river to get b-roll for talking about erosion control, fish-friendly farming, and re-vegetating the riverbanks with native plants. Then we went up to a lookout of the area, and on our way back down the hill we did some car-dolly shots with the vines. Headed back to Healdsburg to find shots of ‘community.’ Finishing around 7pm, we had dinner at the Bear Republic Brewpub, and drove from Healdsburg to Petaluma.

Underwater shots with a GoPro camera

Ryan and Mike taking in the view at Rockaway vineyards

3/30 - Just before 7am we headed over to Mrs. Grossman’s. Had a quick tour of the place, then Robin made a run to starbucks for coffee and craft services (where I later got the classic intern job of handing out coffee and cutting the pastries!) Andy arrived just after the tour, and we had a new PG&E rep today. The whole day was full of overbooked tours, but we were still able to keep the gift shop area to ourselves for the time we needed. We talked to Jason Grossman, son of Mrs. Grossman (who practically invented the scrapbooking sticker) and current owner of the company. Mrs. Grossman has nothing to do with the buisness now but did come by to visit just for us.

Jason Grossman and Andy our soundman

"No pictures!!" Mike can be quite a character

Jason Grossman and Chip

After the interview we shot a little b-roll of the shop and factory downstairs, then Mike and Andy ran off to get some shots of Jason and Mrs. Grossman walking through the factory with their dogs. It’s a ‘bring your dog to work’ type of company. Then we filmed the recycling area downstairs (they found a way to recycle all their scrap adhesive papers), the water treatment, quality control, light motion sensors, and main entrance. Mrs. Grossman’s is all the scrapbooking-type stickers, and Paragram is all of the wine label stickers, which is about 90% of their business with this economy and all the sticker competition being made in china.

Printing sparkly rainbow star stickers

Products of Paragon Label (part of Mrs. Grossman's)

Our last stop was the wetlands that the building overlooks. Best of all, they sent us away with tons and tons of free stickers. Around 4pm we were wondering Petaluma in search of more ‘community’ shots. Opting to move as little as possible, we had an exquisite dinner at the hotel. After dinner, I headed out with Mike, and finally found a geocache in California!

The wetlands behind the building

With Mrs. Grossman

Finding shots of "community" in Petaluma

3/31 - On Thursday we had to leave the hotel at 5am to get to the San Francisco airport in time. Dropped off the rental car, then I went on standby for the earlier flight since I still had tickets for 6pm (they changed their flight after the restaurant location postponed the shoot for another week). I did get on the 8:20 am flight with them. I got asked a lot if anything I’m learning in classes is remotely related to what I saw this week on location. There are only two classes I could think of that remotely related to what we did: lighting and grip, and production management. One thing I found interesting is how crazy and outgoing they are, yet magically focused during shoots, and how much philosophy they talk over dinner! I’m hoping I might get more opportunities with Mike, since he works for Cheyenne Frontier Days, and seems to know quite a few people in the business.