Welcome to my little corner of the internet.  Its not much but I call it home.  Well, at least home to one of my hobby/passions, storm chasing.  However, my chases center not on what most think of when they hear the term storm chaser.  Rather than go after tornadoes I chase storms more for lightning.  Though tornadoes tend to generate more excitement than anything else, I have more of an affair with lighting than the twisters.  Ive chased storms with the intent of capturing a tornado on camera or video, but its a rare event for me to do so.

As a young kid I remember vividly a tornado approaching our house.  Mom lead me down to the bottom floor of our two story place and as we went into that area I remember looking out a window that was beside the entrance and seeing this thin, twisting funnel that was looming out there making its way towards us.  Mom insisting with all parental passion that I keep moving and follow her or face consequences far greater than that twister.  Shortly after the small tornado (in relative terms I suppose) lifted and the immediate danger passed.  However, the damage, though not physical, was done.  I had been captured by the awesome spectacle that is weather.

Several years later, in a newer more robust house, we were visited by a tornadic storm again.  This time I did not see the twister, rather its aftermath.  Though, in hindsight I guess it may not even have been a twister but thats what everyone had insisted it had been.  What it left behind as evidence, whether tornado or not, fueled my interest even more.  Our house, then, was situated on a large piece of property my family kept cattle and horses on.  So our yard was fenced off with barbed wire, five strands on standard fence poles.  We had a large barn behind the house covered in the typical tin roofing.  Well, whether it was a tornado or not, had taken a few sheets of that tin off.  One of which ended up wrapped around one single strand of that barbed wire while not having so much as loosened any of the others from their anchors.  It was just wrapped around this strand of barbed wire like it was placed there by someone.

It would be many years after that before I actually pursued my interest.  I would often drive out into storms just to get close up views of the lightning and to just be in the storm.   Though, at that time I little realized just how risky that was without good information about what was happening with the storm.  Once I moved to Oklahoma my passion intensified with the dramatic and often intense storms that can be found here.  At some point, I came to the conclusion, rather late some would argue, that I needed a way to record or otherwise document what I was witnessing.  How I went from the experiences with the twister as a young kid and the wind damage from a possible tornado years later to a passion for lighting is uncertain to me.  It was what kept me chasing storms even though I was doing nothing to record the events past the memories they left.

I picked up a camera from a local camera and photography store and the rest, as cliche as it may be, is history.   All the photography did was just fuel my desire to be in the storms taking pictures of natures line art known as lightning.  At my peak with 35mm film I was going through 125 rolls of 36 exposure slide film in a storm season.  It was costly, but I enjoyed it and I loved the expressions on peoples faces when they saw the pictures.  Looking at something that often happens so quickly you are unable to appreciate the beauty in it.

So there you have it.  The reason this site exists.  Nothing more than to showcase what I capture on storm chases and my other photographic adventures.  The site is in a new reincarnation as I took time off from updating it as my chases during the last couple of seasons have been minimal at best.  In addition I have been more and more involved with other passions and pursuits in life and it has been harder to get out there and fuel the passion for lightning.

The site is a work in progress at the moment as I work to get everything set back up and upload my pictures.  Check back as you can, I'll be working to make it worth your time.