EP102 Thomas Hinterdorfer | Storm Chaser and Photographer

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Camera Life podcast. This is a very special episode of the random photography show because we've got storm chaser, meteorologist and photographer Thomas Hinterdorfer. Let's roll the. All right, first things first, did I pronounce your surname right? [00:00:39] Speaker B: Yeah, you got it right. [00:00:40] Speaker A: Yes. [00:00:41] Speaker C: Hey, finally. Finally got one. [00:00:45] Speaker A: All right, this is. This is episode 102 of the camera Live podcast and I'm joined by Jim, as always, Jim, as known as Jim's mowing, Jim's boudoir photos, Jim's weddings and Thomas Hinterdorfer, storm chaser. And it's gonna be a great show. I'm very, very excited. So thanks for joining me. [00:01:06] Speaker B: Yeah, happy to be on. Happy to talk about all of this. [00:01:10] Speaker A: Your photos are crazy and we'll be getting into them a bit later. But before we do that, before we find out all about you, we need to do a real quick thing, otherwise the live chat's gonna go nuts. We need to draw the winner from last week's show because we were giving away $650 prize pack of lucky strap stuff. [00:01:33] Speaker C: Are we doing it now? [00:01:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm going to do it. I'm just going to do it right now because otherwise they're going to get mad at me. Look at the chat's already. Look at them. Grant was here first. He was here 15 minutes early. And then, look at this, Philip Johnson. Will they be on time? Actually, I should say hello to everyone. Lisa, good to see you. Rodney, good to see you. Just Lisa and the dogs. Neil's working. That's a shame. Well, we're glad to have you here. [00:02:01] Speaker C: You can watch the replay. [00:02:03] Speaker A: That's right. Evening, Bruce. Evening, David. Oh, Jason's here. Somehow Thomas's surname couldn't be more. More adequately suit his photography pursuits. I agree. [00:02:15] Speaker B: Yeah, that's fair. [00:02:17] Speaker A: It's a good surname. Rick Nelson. Being late is on brand for us. We weren't that late. [00:02:22] Speaker C: It's like a minute. Yeah, that's on. [00:02:24] Speaker A: That's on time. And hey, Greg's. Greg's got the flu or something. The man flu. So we got. Yeah, Lisa's right. No, no, Greg. You know we're trying to pull this off without Greg. [00:02:34] Speaker C: Yeah, we've got rid of him for the week. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Nick Fletcher's joining from the gym. Prove it. Send us a picture. You're on the couch. Brett Wooderson, good evening. Great, everyone's here. Awesome. All right, shall we do this? Should we do this draw? I'll pull it up, then we can get the show on. The road. [00:02:54] Speaker C: Do you want to explain to everyone what the draw is about? [00:02:57] Speaker A: Oh, well, you know, it was 100th episode and we. We did a giveaway live on the show last week. And then I felt bad for anyone that couldn't watch live, so I was like, we'll do another one. And they had a whole week to enter, so if you didn't enter, your own bad luck. Hang on, where are we? [00:03:14] Speaker C: Are you gonna bring it up this time? [00:03:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm gonna bring it up this time. It doesn't do anything. I tested it earlier. I was hoping to find one that does like fireworks or something when the winner. Nothing. It's just sad. Sadly pulls a comment up. All right, here we go. We ready? It's Loading comments. That's Paul. Paul, you won. I'm sure that's Paul, isn't it? 2.2. [00:03:39] Speaker C: Yes. Paul from New Zealand. [00:03:42] Speaker A: Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Well, he's probably in New Zealand right now. [00:03:46] Speaker C: Well, he said, hi, he's in New Zealand. Hi, all from New Zealand. [00:03:51] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, he's in New Zealand right now. Paul, you won. Crazy. His comment was, hey, guys, congratulations on reaching the ton. I think you've hit on a great format and it will continue to evolve as you incorporate new interactive ideas like live call in, which is happening. All right. Look at him. Woohoo. He's happy. Sorry, everyone else, thanks for entering. We'll do more comps. We should have been doing more of them anyway. And delivered in New Zealand. Yeah. I'll bring everything over for you. [00:04:19] Speaker B: Yep. [00:04:21] Speaker C: Enough luggage? [00:04:22] Speaker A: No, no, I'm. I'm heading to New Zealand, Thomas, in a week and a half or something. So I'm snowboarding and taking photos and that takes up a lot of luggage space. It's going to be a bit of a battle. [00:04:37] Speaker B: Oh, it does. My parents this morning for Queenstown, so I can. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. [00:04:44] Speaker A: What are they. What are they doing over there? [00:04:47] Speaker B: Attempting to ski. [00:04:48] Speaker A: Nice. [00:04:51] Speaker C: Can they ski or are they going to learn over there? [00:04:55] Speaker B: They've done it before and just say they've done it before. That's it. [00:04:59] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:00] Speaker B: It hasn't been great. [00:05:03] Speaker A: I don't know. I don't know if you guys will be able to see this, but look. What. Look what Nick Fletcher just sent me. He is at the gym, so he. I said prove it. He's proved it. Well, enjoy the show. Nick from. From the treadmills or whatever you're on. You're wearing a jacket, though. You can't be too working out too hard. All right, let's talk storm chasing. So let's, let's bring this up. First of all, there we go. Now how did you get into this? [00:05:35] Speaker B: So I got into it when I was very young and I think that's how a lot of storm chasers get into the craft. It's kind of this thing that you get addicted to as a, as a kid. I think a lot of us storm chasers in general had some sort of like year three, four, five, six in that sort of age bracket where we were learning science or something to do with weather. And it just stuck, especially the severe weather side of things. I mean, a lot of people don't really find fine and sunny or rainy as exciting or enjoyable. I'm sure going outside and having a great day, it's perfect. But for all storm chasers, it's all about the extremes and obviously pushing ourselves and, and what we can do with chasing severe weather and you know, getting up close and personal as often as possible. [00:06:29] Speaker A: Right, so you've been into it for a long time. [00:06:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:33] Speaker A: And so where, where do you live now? Where, where's home base for you? [00:06:37] Speaker B: About an hour south of Brisbane. [00:06:40] Speaker A: Okay. And that's kind of like because you run essentially or you're the meteorologist for Higgins storm chasing weather, correct? Extreme weather, yeah. So that's kind of your, would you call that your day job? Is that your. [00:06:58] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. That, that's my essentially full time job and trust me, during, during the months of October through to March and April, it is a full time job. I'm enjoying it at the moment. It's a little bit relaxed, a little bit of forecasting and work to do in the morning and then most of the day it's pretty chill. It's, it's a great job to have for obviously I get to stay home all day as well, get to veg out on the couch whenever I need to. But yeah, there are some pretty hectic days that we have to cover. And obviously any big storm day through northeast New South Wales or Queensland in general is all hands on deck kind of thing. So yeah, it's an awesome job, but it's a busy job. [00:07:43] Speaker A: And so that's like very separate to sort of what you do in terms of photography and stuff. This is very much. That's a weather service essentially that you can, that people can subscribe to. [00:07:56] Speaker B: Correct. And then obviously my chasing and photography and stuff, that's all leisure for me. That's getting away from the desk and actually getting to go see what I'm trying to forecast and, and Be out in nature doing what I actually really love the most. Okay. [00:08:14] Speaker A: When did, when did photography come into it? [00:08:19] Speaker B: I'm. How old am I? I'm 31. Glad I remembered that. About 21 ish. 2021. Just out of school. I kind of was already part of the Higgins storm chasing team. My page was starting to take off a little bit, my personal page. And it kind of was that stepping stone of not sitting behind the desk, but actually physically starting to go and properly chase. Not a local chase like down the road, but several hours away from home, really getting to the groove with that sort of thing. And obviously it started out with a phone, which I think most storm chasers do. Just start out with a phone and then, you know, picked up my first camera and then as the years went on, upgraded some gear. A lot of the gear hasn't actually been upgraded now for about five or seven years, but it's just working for me. So it's kind of one of those things that I haven't had a need to upgrade yet. I'm sure that time's coming though. [00:09:22] Speaker A: You reckon? What, so what, what was your first camera? Do you. And when did you buy your first camera? Roughly? [00:09:29] Speaker B: It was about 20, 21. So about 10 years ago, 11 years ago that I bought my first camera. It may have actually been a birthday gift, I can't quite remember, but it was a, it was a Canon, I want to say like EOS 1100D or something. One of the real basic standard DSLR starter kit packs. Yeah, I stuck with that for a while and it's probably just a combination of various things like camera functionability, not bothering to actually clean lenses and stuff. And it kind of pushed me to that point of the quality of my stuff that I'm producing now. It needs to be better and it's probably not on me anymore. It's probably on the gear. I'm doing the right thing, being in the right spots and all that sort of stuff. But getting a better camera for my actual job was kind of that. It was just that stepping stone. And that probably happened around 23, 24. Just trying to remember. I went to the States for the first time in 2015 when I was 24. It would have been about 26. So I picked up that, that next step and, and got the 7D Mark II. [00:10:44] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. And jump to which was. Yeah, 7D Mark II. Like still a crop sensor camera, but it was essentially a pro. A pro level kind of crop sensor with. [00:10:52] Speaker B: Yeah. And weather. I guess now it's. It's probably at the bottom of that pack. Probably when I got it, it was more at the middle to top of the pack for that sort of dynamic camera. But obviously now with the way technology's gone, everything. It's pushing down the ranks, but I mean, it's still doing the job for me, so. [00:11:12] Speaker A: So that's what you're still shooting with now? That's. That's still the one. [00:11:16] Speaker B: Yeah. I've taken God knows how many photos, so I'm. I'm someone that doesn't. I don't clean South Dakota cards or anything. I'll just go and physically buy a new one. And I've probably filled about 30 SD cards now just from the US trips alone. [00:11:36] Speaker A: Really? You just, you just fill them and then that's it. Really? [00:11:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:43] Speaker C: Do you, do you back them up or is it just. [00:11:46] Speaker B: Yeah, there's backups and everything. I've been up just. That's crazy. [00:11:52] Speaker A: So what was the theory behind that? Like what, what made you think. [00:11:59] Speaker B: That'S the theory? That's the reality. But part of it too was with, with going to the States. One of our first stops is always Best Buy in the States. And yeah, their, their SD cards are like a quarter of the price of ours. So it's like I. I picked up a 265, 256 or 512 gig SD card last year for. It was like 45. I'm like, I can't even get that in Australia. So I'd rather just replace them. If something went wrong in the future, I'd rather. I've got them in my little case on my desk here. I know where that is at all times. [00:12:38] Speaker A: That's. [00:12:38] Speaker B: Yeah. The real thing was I was lazy. [00:12:41] Speaker A: I don't think I've ever met anyone that. Yeah, see. Oh, man, that's nuts. It is. It is nuts. I don't think we've ever. We've had all sorts of like, people say that they have like a rotation of memory cards and this is how they, you know, they. It goes over here and it sits on this shelf until that gets cleared. And then they do this and they've got these funny systems and stuff, but I've never heard of anyone that just like deposits them in a box and that's that next memory card. [00:13:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I probably need to start labeling them. I think I'm at the point where I'm. I'm actually kind of doing one card every trip now. [00:13:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:15] Speaker B: Even. Even a 64 gig card, I probably won't go through for an entire Trip. I am pretty finicky with what I take a photo of now. I don't just take photos for the sake of taking photos like I used to. Yeah. So getting even a 64 gig card would probably last me the trip. I probably look at now, the speeds on the cards and stuff more than anything than the actual size. But I basically just do a card trip now and I probably do need to start labeling so I know which one is which year without actually having to put it in the computer and sort through the photos. [00:13:51] Speaker A: Yeah, that's probably a good idea. I think that's. Yeah, I love it. That's awesome. [00:13:57] Speaker B: So. [00:13:58] Speaker A: Okay, let's talk just. So first of all, do you have you shot much in Australia or do you mainly shoot in the States? Is Australia like does that get you excited to go and take photos in Australia? [00:14:16] Speaker B: It used to. It still does to a degree, but it really used to. Until America became a massive thing for me, I, through probably pre2015 I was chasing a little bit, not a whole lot. I was still, I still had a full time job at the time before higgin storm chasing. So obviously getting shifts off and stuff was difficult. 2015 and 2016 I was really into Australia. I was going probably too hard for or what I should have been doing. I was chasing every storm set up. I think I chased through southeast Queensland and northeast New south Wales like 45 days in a row. Pretty much living on the road, just bypassing my house, not even bothering going back home and stuff. And great year 2016 was for getting shots and stuff. 2017, it's kind of started tapering off. I, I mean I'm happy to admit I basically went bankrupt in America in 2017, 18 and 19. So it was like I was putting everything into those trips. I did borrow money off the parents in 2019 to finish the trip. And then yeah, I, I basically started working out that a chase for me in Australia or say I'd be like three days in a row through central Australia or like outback Queensland. I'm probably looking in the ballpark figure of fifteen hundred dollars for doing that. With the price of our fuel, getting hotels, all that sort of thing, food costs, whatever else. And it started being a thing of I can do that for subpar storms or I can go to America. And that essentially covers an entire week of tornadoes in America where you know our biggest day here will match one of their worst day or lowest end days. Yeah. So it started being a thing now where I save up for nine months, go over there for three months. Lots of sacrifice. But I mean, as you guys have seen from this season, it started to pay off. And, and even the last few years, it's paying off big time. [00:16:29] Speaker A: The photos and stuff from your recent trip are nuts. Absolutely. [00:16:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:37] Speaker A: It, it must have been crazy like, and, and so they go through these years of seasons that are insane over there. Is that, is there way more activity like because of that, more people chasing storms? It, people, you know, it's happening so it draws more and more people in and it gets busier and busier. [00:16:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. So we had a big discussion about it amongst our friend group over there at the moment just before we came back. We're all talking about it at 4th of July in the pool with beers, real casual. Everyone's complaining that it's cold back home and I'm like, yeah, it's 38 degrees in Kansas today and I'm, I'm complaining that it's not hot enough. But we had a big discussion around the pool at 4th of July that we're struggling to find a three year period that's been this active. We've had insane years. 2011 is obviously it's the pinnacle of, of individual years. You had the April super outbreak that produced off memory 336 tornadoes or something. Two weeks before that they had a super outbreak of 150 up through the Carolinas and then through 2011 you had individual days through May that just, you know, we're breaking records left, right and center. So there's days like that or years like that. We've got two years back to back where they've been big. 1991, I think 11, 10, 11 was big. Oh, 102 or in the early double O's. There are a couple years there's been those sort of runs, but we're struggling to find a three year period at the moment. Every one of those twos kind of had a dead one with it. 10, 11 had nine, was below average. 12 was one of the worst years ever for chasing. Even coming into this run during the COVID years, it was actually the best time for internationals to miss out because they had one of the worst years ever in 2020. It was like some veteran Chase has got like five days in for the main eight weeks of the season and that was it. So yeah, it's been very active at the moment. And I mean our biggest question that we've had was has our success been a mixture of us getting better or just having more samples? We think it's because we're getting better. But it's probably a mixture of both. When you're out chasing every day, when you've got, you know, countless days to succeed, it's the numbers are naturally going to go up. There's still plenty of days we miss out on plenty of even the days we get them. I remember our first chase this year, April 17th around Omaha. We chased a nasty storm through Omaha. Three tornadoes or two tornadoes that day. Didn't even get a photo. Just bad positioning, bad lighting. I remember sitting at stoplights near Omaha Airport and Katie's like, is that the tornado there that they've just confirmed? I'm like, yeah. And I took a photo on my phone. I'm like, I can't even see that. I'm not going to bother with the camera. I literally, I can see it in person. I can't see it on the, on the photo. So why bother? But it's still those days. [00:20:03] Speaker C: When you say getting better, do you mean like getting more results or just getting better? Getting like choosing the right storms in the right spots? [00:20:11] Speaker B: Both, I think with us getting better we've been on more storms. So the last two years we've had 19 individual days where we've seen a tornado. Across those two years we've seen 93 tornadoes, 58 this year, 35 last year. So we obviously seen multiple tornadoes on a single day. But our positioning is getting better. So we're obviously seeing the tornadoes better. We're not seeing them from a distance and it's crazy in those moments but it actually I think helps the photography because it's like if you've got your settings even moderately right, it just seems to do the job because I mean the sky is just doing it all for you. So there's a little bit of that and obviously getting onto the storms more often. Katie's first year coming with me, my girlfriend, was 2022. Horrendous year. We missed a lot, but we thought it was good. At the time we only saw 17 tornadoes which was a great number at the time. And that was my best year up to that point. But now it's just like what we want to see is not this distant thing 20km away. We want to be literally less than a football field away. I a lot of the time I'm shooting like just wide angle now because we're getting so close. Yeah. So when we get, when I talk about getting better, it's about the chase we want to have. We call them stat padding. So we get these little spin up tornadoes that no One's even really going to post about, we don't care about them. They're barely going to get a rating. We call them stat patterns because it's like, oh, we saw 58 tornadoes this year, but how many actually mattered? How many am I actually putting on my wall? And we've got about four or four days. I mean our last chase from this year, I've probably got five photos that I want to put up on my wall from that one day. And I think a lot of other chases are like that too because it was what we call literal perfection for chasing. [00:22:22] Speaker A: There's, there's some comments coming in, some questions coming in the live chat and they all kind of leading me in the same direction. I'm going to read a few of them out but then I'm gonna, we don't have to answer them all because I think it's all going to go into the one, the one discussion. But Rick Nelson wants to know how much of storm chasing is just waiting, waiting around. Bruce Moyles asking like how are you picking locations especially if you don't know the area because it's, it's such a big. [00:22:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:50] Speaker A: Country. You're rocking up into the States. You obviously know it a little bit but you know, you don't, don't know every road where everything goes. You can't do a recce beforehand, you just take so. And Rick Nelson also asked, no where was it? As a true storm chaser, do you love or hate the movie Twister? So I guess everyone really wants to know like what's it really like? Like how does it. So you get over there and then what happens? [00:23:14] Speaker B: You know, so we're going through those questions one by one. Storm chasing is a lot of waiting. It's, it's, there are actual days where we will drive 18 hours to do nothing and it's, you're always thinking ahead. So it's a very, my brain works really complexly like this say Monday, today we'll be chasing today but I actually am thinking more about tomorrow. So if we're chasing in Texas today and the storm set up for tomorrow is in say Nebraska, that's like a 10 hour drive. We, we will finish the chase at 9pm I've got to work out how we're going to get tomorrow's chase. So it's like if the storm is crap, do we just jump off it? You know, save that one or two hours. We did that a few times this year. Storm was looking hideous. So it's like we know it's not going to produce the tornado. It's not producing structure. I can't be bothered today driving through baseballs to miss tomorrow's chase. So let's make inroads. We actually had that this year with a Texas Colorado combo. I was actually telling friends four days out, I'm like, colorado, Friday, you've got to go. It's the lock of all locks for the season. Not the biggest day, but Colorado is just special. When the ingredients are there, it just goes. And we had this mediocre setup in Texas. Nice supercell. It looked pretty for five minutes. Some of our tour friends had a medical incident. They drove back through softballs to get to the hospital. So we're like, okay, we're not playing that. The structure looks mediocre. It's definitely not going to produce a tornado. So we left it at like 7pm Drove all the way to Kansas until 3:30am Just to get into Colorado for the next day. Bag three tornadoes. Drove through one of them, which was one of the wildest. [00:25:17] Speaker A: Drove through one of them. [00:25:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. We, we love to drive actually in for tornadoes. [00:25:28] Speaker A: You got a tank or something? What are you, what are you driving? [00:25:30] Speaker B: RAV4. RAV4. [00:25:32] Speaker A: A rental. RAV4. [00:25:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:34] Speaker C: How badly does it get smashed up? [00:25:36] Speaker A: That's awesome. [00:25:38] Speaker B: So a lot of the time the damage will just be from hail, not from the tornadoes themselves. Most of the ones we drive into are very weak. It's nothing that's going to just pick up a car and flip them. There are some. I mean we probably would have considered driving into our South Dakota tornado on June 28 this year until we saw Reed and the Dominator get physically spun around in it. And we're like, yeah, okay. That if we drive into that we're going to be the damage indicator of a fatality. [00:26:12] Speaker A: So. So he's a, you're. He's at like a chaser that's got like a crazy customized vehicle. [00:26:20] Speaker B: Yeah, he. It's a, it's an F350 truck. What we would consider in Australia just a big ass ute. It's thick. It's. It's quite lengthy. And what they've done is armor plated around it so it can take any amount of. It can take any beating. Except for a deer. They've hit a deer twice and it's put the car off the road for a week. So you know it can survive a violent tornado but not a deer. But a lot of us don't have these armored tanks and we still get close and Drive into them. It's just about knowing the storm, knowing the tornado. There's a lot more to a tornado than being like oh it's big. Some of the nastiest tornadoes actually very small. And it's the, it's. It's like a drain. The smaller that vortex is going down the drain, it almost looks like it's faster. Those winds get really wrapped up and been so tightly around themselves that they can be very violent even though they're quite small. Some of the bigger ones, we actually had a 1.3 mile wide bat 2.83 kilometer I think off the top of my head wide tornado go through southwest Kansas this year. And it was one of the weakest tornadoes you ever seen in your life. It was just really slow moving like just a big cloud on the ground. You probably could have driven into that and probably just didn't even realize it. But no, we, we drove into seven this year. I think I'm up to about 15 that I've driven into. The the strongest was last year in Iowa where it leveled a house behind us after it ran over top of us. So that, that was freaking. [00:28:15] Speaker A: Does that mean. So it could have, it could have flipped. You got like it could have. [00:28:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a bad mistake for me. It was a very. It was a nasty day. Everything was moving fast. So our storm speed was about 100 to 110 kilometers an hour. That's how fast the individual cells are moving. And we just had this big bowl funnel in front of us. It. I didn't even think it was on the ground at that stage until I looked back at the video and sped it up and it's literally ripping trees out of the ground. And I kind of didn't. As storm chaser, we need to respect the storm more than anything else. I definitely didn't respect it. I thought it was just a funnel. I was letting it get close. We had our app. It was just to drive straight down the road we're on. But by the time I physically got back into the car and started the car, got my camera off me, all this sort of stuff, it was literally hitting us. And it almost ripped the hood off the car. It almost ripped my door off. I was trying to get in. It took down all the power lines beside us, through trees over us. It was pulling the car back into it. And then I was doing about 95 miles an hour and it felt like I was going 40. And then we got 100 meters down the road, turned around, drove straight back at it and we Were kind of at a T intersection on a bridge and we turned right to go up behind it and there was just a house leveled across the road. Which, yeah, it's that, it's, that's just part of the gig. Like you, you obviously don't want those moments. But yeah, it's part of the gig that we try and avoid. And like I said, it was a mistake. We've learned from that for future chasing and it's kind of, it actually has helped us in future chases. But yeah, no, going back to the question, there's definitely a lot of dead time. [00:30:16] Speaker A: Right. [00:30:16] Speaker B: One thing I've always told any because I do a lot of school talks and stuff, it's a common question, how do I be a storm chaser? And a lot of kids, I tell them is the one thing you've got to learn is to love driving. It's boring. It can be so boring sometimes. And, and you know, those nothing days sometimes are actually very important. They can be the most important days of the season because you're, you're driving 16 or 18 hours, you're skipping lunch, you're skipping dinner, and that's just what we do. We'll skip meals for this sort of stuff and we'll check out of the hotel at 7am, get to a hotel at 1am and that was all for a big day coming. So like they are important, but yeah, they're, they're boring. I, I can't, I can't, I can't hype them up or anything. They're, they're really, really crappy days. [00:31:13] Speaker C: And you're, you're reading like the weather over there. [00:31:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:31:19] Speaker C: Following it. [00:31:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we're following it every day. Yeah, yeah. [00:31:25] Speaker C: You're trying to get ahead of it. [00:31:26] Speaker A: Are you working in groups and coordinating with other people, like sharing information and that kind of stuff? Obviously you said you were recommending people to go to a spot because you, you know, like, so you obviously coordinate a bit. But also, is there competition like in the movies? [00:31:42] Speaker B: There's certainly competition, but I don't. It's definitely not like the movies. There's competition for spots. A lot of the US chases in particular. This is their job. They either work for companies or they're working off live stream slash video revenue. So there's competition to get the right spot. You want that epic angle, you want that, you know, wall hanging shot, the shot that no one else got that, you know, the news wants and they want to buy it off you. For us, we don't care. I actually Just. I couldn't care less. It's not really a secret anymore for where to go. A lot of the veteran chases, and I'd like to include us in that. Now we're all sort of on the same ballpark. It might be a couple of towns difference, but, I mean, these storms cover sometimes 15 or 20 towns. And it's just getting the right spot on the storm then, which is. It's always obvious as well. So if you're just in the general ballpark, it's typically pretty easy from there. But there's people wanting to obviously do better than others. I've never seen, like two chases get into a physical fight over anything like that. Even this year on our South Dakota tornado, when Reed got spun by the tornado, he actually then backed into a chaser who was trying to bypass him on the left. And then that chaser backed into our friend who was coming in behind and ripped off his bull bar. And then our other friends actually overtook Reed on the right through a ditch. And it's like it was this mayhem of just crashes happening. No one got like it. I don't think anyone even cared. But it was one of those things, like, no, we all actually met up at dinner that night and we were laughing about it. No one cared. [00:33:39] Speaker A: I gotta pull this up. I gotta pull this up. So this is the. When you're talking about the Dominator, that's. [00:33:45] Speaker B: This. [00:33:45] Speaker A: It's. That's nuts. [00:33:47] Speaker B: That's it. Yeah. [00:33:51] Speaker C: Imagine trying to drive that in Australia. [00:33:53] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. That. [00:33:54] Speaker B: I've kind of thought about making one just for like, school talk, because I feel like it'd be a talking point at schools, but even driving down the shops. But it's. Look, honestly, it's a lot of visual sex appeal more than anything else. It. You know, we were at that gas station for four hours, and we got told by locals, like, one photo got posted on social media for the town. It was in Bismarck, North Dakota, and the entire town, they're just wanting to see the car. But, yeah, outside of being able to physically drive in a violent tornado, that it doesn't do much else that we general people can't do that the RAV4 can't do. Yeah. [00:34:38] Speaker A: Grant asked before. Sorry, Grant. He said, how and where can we see his work? So the best spot is on Facebook. Facebook. That's the. So I've got this page up. [00:34:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:47] Speaker A: Which is. So this is where most of your photos and stuff will go. A lot of it also gets shared on the Higgins storm chasing page as well. [00:34:59] Speaker B: Yeah. I Try and limit what I share onto there, obviously, because, you know, we're still covering Australia back home, but if it's something cool, I like to share it up there and get a bit more exposure. I think my page now, though, is it's growing enough that people kind of know. I had a look before because I'm trying to sort some stuff out in the back end, and I'm up to 16,000 US followers, so it's growing. I'm kind of getting that crowd now that knows that I'm doing this, and I think that's really taking that next step in the last few years. That was a thick storm. We. We. Oh, God. We semi destroyed the car in that one. So right when that photo was taken, they picked up a six and a half inch stone. There was some hail scientists doing some stuff that day or for most of the season, and they were riding that core just to the left or what looks like it's kind of over the road, and picked up a six and a half inch stone. We actually had about 200 chases on this road, and I waited for every single one of them to leave just so I could get the shot with no one in it. [00:36:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And then, of course, that meant that we were about two minutes behind and drove straight through it as well. Picked up some baseballs and got to the town of Paducah. It kind of weakened on radar, and I was like, it's not doing much today. Like, it's clearly not. To me, that's very clearly not a tornadic storm. It just doesn't have that look to it. The fact that it's got that aqua tinge through it, too. Typically, the more violent hail producers aren't tornado producers. [00:36:42] Speaker A: What's that lighting? What. What is. What is that color? What, like, what's causing that? [00:36:47] Speaker B: So that's it. It's actually a process to do with our eyes and these storms, or even showers and rain in general, what they do is they'll inject the warm light from the sun. So your reds and yellows, oranges, all those sort of colors and eject cooler colors. I guess that's probably where the notion comes or the myth comes from. You know, a green storm means hail. It actually doesn't. I've chased a couple of green and blue storms where it. They didn't produce hail at all. It's just about how much light getting pulled in and how much it's able to eject. And I guess that triangle is complete by our eyes. But of course, you know, I. I'VE seen plenty of violent hailstorms that have been that color too. So I wouldn't just completely dismiss it. But it is a myth that green means hail. It's actually such a myth that in America it's. That's not the thing. Green means tornado in America, whereas in Australia it's green means hail. Yeah, they don't even, I, I've spoken to people over there about that and they didn't even realize that green means hail was a thing. But yeah, it, it's just this process. It, it takes a really unique set of circumstances and a lot of my friends this year actually said that the setup this year was perfect for it. We had a couple of like royal blue storms, several aqua ones that were even more than that. Yeah, I think if you, if you went. Yeah, I mean that, that was a phone shot that was that blue and that one went on to produce a lot of hail and a tornado up in Seymour, Texas, which we missed. It was a very awkward day. But it's a lot of that heavy precipitation that's just, the storm is just eating all of the warm light and just ejecting a lot of these cool colors. Yeah, it's just one of those things that it makes it a lot easier. I mean, if that had no color in it, it'd be a boring storm for me. End up being one of my favorite non tornadic storms of the season. [00:39:05] Speaker C: And have you guys got, like you said you, you had, you're following it in the car as well. Have you got a lap? You set the laptop up in the car or something? [00:39:15] Speaker B: When we get our own car over there, which is a plan, we will set up a laptop mount, have radar and everything available on it. At the moment we just use our phones. The phone technology for radars over there is phenomenal. We basically just use an app called Radar Scope and I mean it's got location, it's got know all this high, high end technology that we don't readily see in Australia. Their Doppler radar is just, in all honesty, their Doppler radar is what, or sorry, our Doppler radar is what they had in the 80s. So we are like easily 40 years behind what they've got for that level of technology. No, but yeah, we basically focus on phones. It's very easy as well when I'm driving. Yeah, Katie can read a radar perfectly now. She, she's a paramedic. She didn't, she came into this because of me. But she's, she's learned to read a radar Perfectly. She picks out things before I see them sometimes. But even just like holding my phone and driving, which I do do over there, a lot of chasers do. It's actually a. It's not against the law in America. I just want to put that out there. It's frowned upon, but it's not against the law. I mean, I. One of my. One of my funny stories I tell now is so from our June 28, South Dakota tornado, we. So we had like this crazy wiggle in the tornado. It looked like a snake. And we had a bunch of chase along that road. It was one road. It led straight up with the storm. Tornadoes running parallel with the road. It was perfect for photography and chasing. It was super slow moving and yeah, it was. It literally just after this photo was taken, we turned left to follow that car that was just off to the left of the screen there. And we had two cops in front of us. We actually had four police on the storm, which is rare. Usually it's just one. And they're usually there just for search and rescue. They don't honestly know what they're doing, but they know obviously to not drive into tornado and to, you know, wait for house or a house to be leveled and then they go in for search and rescue. And we had four on this storm just because of how the day had played out. There'd actually been a tornado before this in the same area. And I think a few cops were sitting around after that. And so I actually. So they. They were setting up. They had two cops. Well, they had two cops way down, way, way down the road, basically where the tornado end up crossing the road. And then we had two cops that passed us because I think I followed this car and then I pulled off to get a really cool peak. Again, it was just constantly off, on, off, on, because the corner just kept doing things. And yeah, two cops passed us. I actually overtook them because they were setting up a blockade for chases to not go any further. I actually overtook them. I had. I was videoing in my left hand like that, taking photos out the window with my DSLR like that and driving with my knee. And they just. They just didn't even care. Again, we're going like 10 miles an hour. We're not exactly going fast. Yeah, we had. We had one girl that. That passed us and she was the passenger was sitting on the window ledge looking over the car and they just don't care. [00:42:57] Speaker A: Wow. [00:42:58] Speaker B: It's kind of this scenario. They're there to do a job where to do a job there's no other general people there usually. So as long as we're all behaving, the cops are pretty lenient with what they let us get away with. But of course, you know, doing that down the general highway, get pulled over pretty quickly. But yeah, it's. It's one of those things that, like I said, if we. And we always do, we always respect them and stuff. I've been pulled over plenty of times for speeding and whatever. Let off most times because they. They just are. They know you're not doing something intentionally bad. So it's a. It makes chasing much easier. It makes life in these scenarios much easier. Because I'm already worrying about 20 things right in this photo here. I'm wondering what's it actually going to do next? I'm hoping for that. So you've got the inner tube there, and we're. The outer tube is actually what we call sheathing. And it sheathed itself, so it's exposing that inner tube, which, to get that sort of snaking is very rare. Most chasers haven't seen that before. And, you know, I'm thinking then that that altitude is actually just going to come straight back down. It's just going to plant this fat tornado in front of us. I'm wondering if it's obviously going to cross the road. Do we need to be away from those power lines, all these sort of things. Is there a chaser coming up behind me that I'm not seeing? Because I'm obviously focusing on the tornado to have the cops there and. And yeah, be lenient with us. It makes life very easy, especially when we're trying to photograph them the best we can. [00:44:47] Speaker A: Speaking of photographing them. So this. This shot that you took, were you stopped? Does the car stopped or were you still like crawling along, like shooting out the window, or did you get out of the car or like, tell us about taking this shot? [00:45:03] Speaker B: I was. I was stopped. So we'd actually pulled up to where that nearest power pole is. We pulled up there and I did a U turn because our. Some of our best friends were sitting right where I took the photo and went up, got out of the car, ran up to them, and they're just like, don't talk, don't talk. We're filming because obviously it's all about these moments that we've got to, you know, capture as best as we can. They had driven off because they. They actually messaged me and said, the cops are going to shut this road, so follow. And they took off to the left. And we stayed there for maybe another minute and yeah, I was out of the car. It was surprisingly not that windy. It seems like it would be, you know, crazy to be out of the car in this. But we had no rain, no wind. It was all just localized to that tornado. I think actually a lot of the stronger winds coming into that tornado coming from over the hills. And yeah, I mean, we, we got out of the car probably 30, 40 times in front of this tornado and just stood there. I tried my best not to photograph through the windscreen. We actually had a. Eight days before this. On June 20, we had a violent day in North Dakota. And we got right up next to a massive tornado. And I remember winding down the window, we had 130 mile per hour winds, which were about 200 k's an hour. They're called RFD winds. Rear flank downdraft. And it's actually part of the process that makes these tornadoes. It's the very strong upper level winds of the supercell. They get dragged down the ground, wrapped around. Yeah, that's the one that was right where your cursor was when you pulled off. No, the one above it. [00:47:02] Speaker A: This one. [00:47:04] Speaker B: I actually wound down the window in this one because I was shooting through the window and it looked like trash. And I wound down the window. We actually had part of a tree fly straight through the window, which hit my, hit my girlfriend while she was trying to film. We had rain that came through and just plastered the inside of the windscreen. So I'm there. You can see me in, in the video that she got. And I'm just wiping with this blue towel, but I try not to go through the window. I did it in this case, out the window. I mean, I wouldn't normally put down the window in that, but I knew we needed to get a photo of this. That was like easily one of the most violent tornadoes I've seen until the South Dakota one. And plenty of rain, plenty of hail and wind. And it was just about getting one shot. And my camera got absolutely stoked after that. Ironically, it didn't have any water drops on the lens. I was like, okay, that's a. I, I can deal with shooting with a Wet camera for 30 seconds. Just don't wet the lens. And I was trying to protect it as much as I could. I was actually shooting straight over the side mirror so I could put my hand around the side. And I was kind of going through there just to protect it a little bit. Yeah, and yeah, a lot of the time we've got stuff on the. On the dash. I've got maps on the dash. We've got other cameras and stuff, and they just reflect. I remember getting a. A crazy tornado back in, like 2017 or something. I was by myself at the time and. Or 2019. I was by myself and I didn't think. And I actually had two packets of lollies up on the. On the dash. I had maps. I had. My spare phone was open on the dash. And it's just reflections everywhere. And I'm like, don't do that again. Just. So, yeah, no shooting out the window is. I. I try and do it often as I can when I'm driving. If we can stop, pull over and. And get actual shots, I would prefer that. But then one of the things that a lot of people are probably. Probably not shocked about when you actually say it, but for professional photographers, we don't use tripods. We physically can't in these scenarios. I've seen pro togs that go over on tours and stuff, and one of the biggest complaints I've heard from the tours is they're always waiting for one or two people who are like 100 meters down trying to get the right composition with a tripod. And it's like we're literally about to get run over. Just. I know it's not perfect. I know it's not the most ideal scenario, but sometimes you just gotta take the shot. Yeah, that's. Katie. Got that one in front of me or of me in front of the tornado. It just crossed us here where we were standing. It just came through here like 30 seconds before that. We were driving straight up at it, and we just watched it cross the road in front of us and then got behind it. Yeah. [00:50:05] Speaker A: Did you. Did you get a photo of the. Did you get a photo of this as well? Is there a shot that you can see that you took? [00:50:11] Speaker B: I think it's my next photo. Yeah, the one to the left. So that. That was the dslr Pick that little thing, the white bit that's coming out to the left there of the actual. What we call the color cloud. Looks a bit like a funnel, just probably to 2 degrees to that. Arrow. Arrow. Arrow that's on the left. Yeah, just there where the cursor was. That's actually a second tornado. So that was a satellite tornado ripping around the backside that we only got a few seconds of footage of this particular day. We saw 13 tornadoes in the space of four hours. But no, I'm glad Katie's actually got that shot. We don't have a lot of action shots of us. Our selfie went pretty viral as well. Yeah, that was four years in the making. Yep. Yeah. So that's. She's actually. So she's got a camera on there. She's actually out of the car. I was getting back in to drive because to me that's starting to get now too far away to that tornado. We had the opportunity to be much, much closer. This is after that little wiggle, so we'd kind of let it go for a bit. She's out getting these shots because it's. That sheathing's now come back down and it's done a properly plant again. And I got back in the car. I'm like, okay, I won't. I won't yell at her. I don't. I try not to yell or get, you know, overly dramatic for my chasing. It's kind of. She's having her moment right now and that moment's not going to cost us. So I try and let that sort of stuff go. I used to be really like, we've got to go now. Like. And then you get up and it's like we actually had like five more minutes. So we could have. Yeah. Sat there and probably with that too. I've learned that sitting there and having some moments, even if you're not 100 meters away, like here we're probably 400 meters away. 3, 500 meters away. It's. It's. Sometimes it's good just to sit back. We drive so much to get out of the car as much as we did with this one was phenomenal. But she was taking photos and I. We'd been not arguing, but we keep bringing it up every time it's like, we've got to take a selfie. TV wants a selfie, but media wants a selfie. Social media loves selfies. Like, we've got to start taking selfies. We keep missing them because we're too busy photographing. And I got back in the car and I'm like, oh, yeah, Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. I'm like, this is. This is it. And I got out and I said, put the damn camera down. She's like, why? Why? And I'm like, delphi, now turn around now. She's like, yeah, okay, I'm not yelling at you. Like, this is. This is what you want. This is. Yeah. We've had a lot of selfies that just didn't work out. I know we had one last year in Hawley. Where? Hawley, Texas, where we were. We didn't move. For 30 minutes, the tornado moved down our road, and then we finally moved just to get out of its path and it moved five kilometers in 30 minutes. And really we took one selfie and it happened to be probably the worst moment of that tornado. Probably five minutes after we took the selfie, it just planted and it was this photogenic beast. And we're like in. In the moment, we're like, oh, this is epic. We're taking so many photos of. I've got like five or six that I could hang on my wall. And. And then we look back and we're like, that's the one we should have taken a selfie on. We had that with the last big dusty one as well. We like, we should have taken a selfie. It's the one thing we didn't do with that tornado. And then this one we did. And then I saw my social media afterwards and everyone got a selfie. So I was like, oh, tornado selfie of the year contender. Until I realized that everyone took a selfie. But again, though, she. She was right. She said if we didn't get a selfie there, it would have. It would have made it less amazing than what it was. We kind of ticked every box we could have with that tornado. Multitasking is. Is hard in these scenarios when you're trying to focus obviously on being safe, but you know, we're trying to video photograph take selfies, do all these other things. Didn't have radar for an hour and a half because too many chases were stuck on the storm. That's. That was the biggest problem this year in, in the States that the networks were fine until you had 200 chases on one storm and you're all hitting one tower. Yeah, we were in tornadoes at times we're like, we can't even load a radar. Like, I can't even see what's happening behind me. So yeah, there's. There's all those sort of moments and you're trying to think about it all at once. And yeah, the Aurora is there too. As well. Yeah, last year was pretty phenomenal and this one was phenomenal for different reasons. [00:55:16] Speaker C: So. Oh, you go. [00:55:18] Speaker A: No, go on. [00:55:19] Speaker C: I was going to ask Tom. So on your photos it says like, not for me to use content available for licensing. Is that for, like the media to purchase it off you? [00:55:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I probably won't ever sell the photos. It's pretty common for me to now get requested for calendars and stuff and I just don't do them. Yeah, it's more just of a Deterrent. So like don't steal it. I'm pretty close now to getting what is it, like meta licensing or something on Facebook. I'm pretty close to getting that. So that'll be great for content theft. I don't really care too much, but I mean I had one video from that South Dakota tornado that I accidentally posted without a watermark. It got viewed two and a half million times or four million times, something like that. Had 35, 000 likes, 4, 000 shares or something. And actually so it went viral through the Philippines and Malaysia. I'm guaranteeing that that's been stolen and I would have just loved to have put it into the licensing program. Just be like, hit them all. Yeah, with photos and stuff. It's a bit harder for police it and control it, but it's just there as a deterrent. I've got a pretty good relationship with media people now. A lot of my best friends are, are in media or a lot of people that I know in media are great friends now. They typically won't steal it, but even then I, I will just, you know, either give them an unwatermarked one or just tell them to crop it. Sometimes I just, I don't care that much. It's like if the courier mail or someone asked that I would just tell them not to either crop it or just use as is because it's like it's not worth the effort for me. I'm not there trying to get it on social media. I just happen to have that. I'm not trying to get into the media. I'm just there trying to do my thing. And plenty of media do follow and love it. But no, I know it's a very big thing in America to not watermark your stuff. They will hit you with massive, massive licensing fines. And it's almost like a bait that they, I see it all the time. It's like, oh, you better watermark your stuff. And it's like, no, actually if this gets stolen that they'll hit people with six figure fines. And it's kind of like we will take your YouTube page down even if it's got 50 million followers. If Mr. Beast stole content from a high profile chaser in the states and didn't license it, they would, they could take his page down in five minutes. It's really successful. YouTube's far more successful I think at taking pages down. Facebook's just good at giving black marks and stuff. But yeah, it's just a deterrent. People still steal it. I've seen my watermark cropped in so much stuff. And I know it's frustrating. I know professionals photographers absolutely hate it. I'm probably just at the point now where it's like I'm not sitting up until 6am dealing with this. Like I actually just want to get some sleep. What am I actually benefiting from that photo that I was never going to sell? Like it's probably lucky it's even on social media. Yeah. There's plenty of stuff I've seen stolen that I was wasn't even going to post. I'm like, well cool. Well what am I going to do about it? Yeah. So. Yeah. What. [00:59:07] Speaker A: So is there, is there money to be made Storm Chase? Obviously there is. There's, there's, like I said live streaming, stuff like that. But for what you do. Is it purely for fun? [00:59:16] Speaker B: It's purely for fun. If I can make some money off it with monetization on stuff, I will. But I mean I haven't, I don't have monetization on my page at the moment. I'm actually in the process of getting that as well because one of that video that's gone viral it so that Facebook have all these marks that you have to meet for monetization. It's like 180,000 minutes viewed, 50,000 reactions, 10,000 followers and stuff. That video is like triple that. It's up to. I checked before it was 318 days of view time which is 450,000 minutes or something. I was trying to work it out. So I've kind of passed with. They're not giving it to me yet. It's probably because it is only a one video thing. Not, you know, multiple videos that have done that. So there isn't. I'm not there to make money. I also don't have the legal ability to make money in America. So it would be purely off me posting stuff and getting ad rev off, you know, videos on Facebook. I don't have a YouTube page set up. I'm not there selling Patreon subscriptions for people to watch us live stream. I actually don't live stream. My best chance of live streaming is like I videoed this, I photographed it. Oh, I can actually live stream and you know, we're not moving for the next 10 minutes. I might go quickly live on Facebook. [01:00:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:46] Speaker B: So there is money to be made. I just, I'm not actively going after it. It's for fun. I, I'd rather, you know, I, I'd love to make ad revenue that can pay for part of the trip. It's an expensive trip, but I mean, without the ad Riv, I've still been doing it for now nine years. This year was my ninth chasing trip over there and I actually had one flight where I went over for a wedding. So I've been over there 10 times. I'm funding it. Fine. I don't need the ad rev. A lot of chase is actually make money being contracted to media networks or private weather companies. One of my best mates is the one of the lead reporters for AccuWeather. So he obviously gets a salary and they basically pay. They pay him to go and, you know, they'll pay hotel costs and stuff. Sometimes that helps. Those more established chases continuously do it. But I mean, there's a lot of people we look at that they've chased every second day of the season for five months straight, like before we get over. And they're still chasing now after we've gotten home. We look at them, they're like, we know you're hitting the bottom of the barrel now. Like, it's. We know you don't make a lot of money off this. We know you're not getting paid to do this. It then it wouldn't shock me if you're not on the scene anymore. And that's one of the big things with chasing that. That you either lose funds and can't do it anymore or you get burnt out from doing it too much. Yeah, yeah. That's one thing I tell people. Like, if you're doing it as a side thing, make sure you've got another income. For me, that's Higgins storm chasing and getting paid through that. And then do it for fun because there's so many chases, they'll have the most epic year and then two years, three years later, they're just not on the scene anymore. It's like, where'd they go? It's like, oh, they went onto a cruise and just decided not to come back for nine months. They just stayed out at sea and. And they actually do that. It's like you'll see them post up on Facebook, like, where have you been? Like, I've been out in the woods camping and hunting and just liked not being on social media. So I stayed out there for a year and a half. It's like, you were so good. Like, just burnt out. [01:03:11] Speaker A: Yeah, just burnt out. Paul Henderson says as a storm chaser, your travel insurance must be nuts. [01:03:18] Speaker B: It's not bad. It's. It's actually less crazy than people think. [01:03:22] Speaker A: Okay. [01:03:23] Speaker B: We get a Lot of travel insurance through places like Covermore. That's our one that we go through for all of our trips. Outside of that, there's not a lot of insurance you really need, especially when you're not doing stupid stuff relentlessly. We'll do stupid stuff here and there, but again, the stupid stuff comes with experience. We know. Yeah. [01:03:49] Speaker C: Also I was gonna say like the rental car and stuff like that. [01:03:52] Speaker A: Insurance must be. [01:03:54] Speaker B: We, we get full coverage. [01:03:56] Speaker A: I was gonna say, you tick all the boxes. Surely when they're like, did you want the extra windscreen cover? And you're like, yeah, yeah. [01:04:04] Speaker B: I actually, I've done, God, 15, 16 windscreens in the States now. I did three and four days back in 2017. [01:04:15] Speaker A: You should see the hail. The like the photos. [01:04:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:04:18] Speaker A: And stuff that pops up. They're all like, it's like, yeah, but. [01:04:22] Speaker B: But I'm actually where. I'm like, I'd, I'd almost rather just replace the windscreen myself for like 150 and go through all the questions. There's questions you can get around for obviously being covered. I mean the beauty of it too is a lot of time when they ask, we've probably been rolled by a storm at a hotel. I Remember back in 2023, we chased all day in South Dakota and got to Sioux Falls that night and we're staying in the hotel. We got there like 3:00am and 4:00am I'm, I just edited photos. Wasn't a crazy day. So I'm like, I'm not going to put too much effort into editing photos and getting stuff up. And I, I go to bed and I see lightning outside. And Katie's like, is there a storm coming? I'm like, it's probably the storm from earlier. I wouldn't worry about it. I looked on radar. It's got four and a half inch hail marker on it, like 12 centimeters. I'm like, oh. By the time I actually got down to the car park, we already had baseballs just coming down. I'm like, whoa. I'm like, I'm just gonna film this because it's like if they ask questions, we actually weren't doing anything wrong here. We actually hadn't damaged the car at that stage either. We blew out the windscreen, but it wasn't that bad for us. I saw. So it was about 5am it stopped. It went for about an hour. It was really slow build up and really slow finish. And I walked out and had a look at the car. I'm like, okay, it's drivable that's all I care about. But the car next to us had five holes through the windscreen. The whole back windscreen or back windshield had. Or the back window had gone. Yeah. Even in 2024, I think, I don't know the 24 or 23. Our last chase was up in Nebraska. Picked up six tornadoes that day. We're going to Chili's for dinner with some friends. Storm coming in gets tornado warned. We're like, everyone's on the other storm still. Let's go for this one where the only chase is on it and we're coming in. It's like it's got baseballs and bigger in it. And in some areas you can just tell it's like, oh, it's saying 4 inches but it doesn't feel like it's going to be a 4 inch stone. It's probably going to be like 1 to 2, which isn't even going to damage the car. And then other times it's like it's saying one and it's probably got fives in it. And this one had that feeling about it. And we came back to Chili's and right across the road with the gas station. Pulled into the gas station which is our go to for protection. That or a bank. They drive in. Banks are just concrete armor. They usually have three drive throughs at a bank and the whole bank will obviously be like concrete and just an armored tank and then the ceiling over the top and stuff. But we got into this gas station like, okay, it was raining baseball and bigger. Raining baseballs, raining softball. One hailstone actually pierced through the roof of the gas station and hit a girl in the head and knocked her out. So I was like, katie, you've got to go to work. She's like, I'm not getting out of this. I'm like, we, our friends were actually inside the gas station at the time. They were going to get a drink, trying to beat the hail. And it just, they didn't beat it. And they looked after her. Katie went in afterwards, she was fine, but a car came in behind us. We got lucky. We took the last two spots. I took one. And then our friends are actually parked out and I'm like, you're not seriously going to park out in this side. Like how big? I'm like, it's going to be softballs. They're like, yeah, okay, we'll drive the car. And I actually stood in the spot so no one would take it. And midway through the storm this, this girl comes driving in her two windscreen wipers have been snapped off by the hail. Entire front windscreen is just hail shattering all side windows. The back window had gone, her light had gone. Her front light covers, so the backlight was actually physically gone. Her two front lights were destroyed, the covers. And she's like, oh, I've got to go to Chugwater or something somewhere two hours further west. I'm like, oh. She's like, is there gonna be another one? I'm like, no, like, you're actually gonna drive in this? She's like, I gotta get home. And I looked on the radar and it's actually another storm coming. I thought, shit, you poor thing. So, yeah, look, we get off pretty easy sometimes I think every car I've taken it back had some sort of hail damage or something. But no, the travel insurance, we're fully covered. We do our best to make sure. A lot of time the people we're talking to probably know us already because these, these airports and even private companies over there that do cars, they, they Google people. I've had car rental people actually message me while I've been over there like, is this the Thomas that hired a car from here? I'm like, yeah, why Your mileage? I'm like, okay, I'm glad that's all he is. [01:09:25] Speaker C: That would normally be pretty high too, wouldn't it? [01:09:29] Speaker B: Yeah, we do the last three years, I think I've done about 135000 kilometers in three years in just like, that's three, three month periods. That's why I love doing the desk job so much when I get home. We went up to Redcliffe for a, a family friend's kid's birthday on Saturday or Sunday, Sunday yesterday. And that one hour drive, I'm just like, katie, you drive. I'm not, no, no, thanks. I'm, I'm done. I'm done with my big drive for the year. It is a thing though, but in Australia that I've noticed, our one or two hour drive, they're annoying for a lot of people in America. Like a six hour drive for us is just a piece of cake. I'll wake up and be like, we've got to go seven hours for our target sites. It shifted and it's like, okay, let's get in the car, we'll skip lunch, it's fine. You can speed a little bit. The highways are faster. Typically a cop won't pull you over unless you're probably pushing eight or nine over. [01:10:32] Speaker A: The speeding is nuts. Like, yeah, we did. So I did a Couple of road trips there last May. Did One that was 30 days, basically from LA, like around through California and stuff ended in Colorado. But we like looped up and down through a lot of the states on that side, that. That southwest corner. And we did one like Texas across to Tennessee as well. And it's like you're doing the speed limit like you're supposed to, and cars are just like passing me like I'm not even moving. And I'm like, all right, I got to get up to speed with the. With the rest of everyone else so. [01:11:13] Speaker B: That I'm not causing problems. [01:11:15] Speaker A: It's crazy. Just everyone's. [01:11:17] Speaker B: I remember going from. From San Antonio to Fort Stockton on the. In Texas and the highway, there's 80. I was doing 85. Cause I typically sit like five to eight over. Cause a cop won't pull you over for that. I. Cars literally hauling past me. I end up getting up. Like, I don't want to brag about doing stupid speeds, but I end up getting up like 110 and there's cars still passing me. I'm like, I'm not keeping up anymore. I'm just. I'm just sitting back. I'm done. [01:11:45] Speaker A: And that's miles per hour, people. It feels very fast. It feels. [01:11:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:50] Speaker A: And then. Yeah, it's crazy. Anyway, yeah, we should talk. We should talk camera gear because we're. Yeah, we're ticking along through this thing. Also, Bruce just says cover more adds the question. Are you planning on storm chasing just after this. Keen question. Yeah. Hopefully they don't see this podcast. [01:12:07] Speaker B: Hopefully no one's watching from COVID. [01:12:11] Speaker A: All right, let's talk. So gear. So you said you're shooting with 7D Mark II. [01:12:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:18] Speaker A: Talk us through. Just like, what do you pack camera wise and cameras and accessories for just getting this stuff done for when you're going over to the States. [01:12:29] Speaker B: So I. It's obviously the 7D Mark II, as it's my only camera. I've still got the. That starter kit one in the car, but I don't actually take it over anymore. That was kind of more of a thing if I was setting up tripods. You know, shoot on one, shoot on another simultaneously. But I just don't do that anymore. I. I use the tripod three times this year. And that was awful lightning that I didn't care about. I've always. I will die on the hill saying that Australia gets better lightning than the state. I will die on that hill every day. [01:13:04] Speaker A: Grant wanted to know, for the lightning, are you using a lightning trigger? To get those shots or how do you shoot your lighting? [01:13:10] Speaker B: No, daytime. I was way back when I was setting up and stuff. I honestly don't set up the lighting in the States anymore. Unless friends are doing it back home. I won't, I, I, I'm very basic with this sort of stuff and it was, I'll set up a 10, 15, 20, 30 second exposure and have it all just there. I'm real basic with it. At night I don't try and push my limits for what I know. You know, I try and research stuff here and there and talk to friends who are professional photographers. But I've learned for anyone that was starting up and that's probably where I was when I started doing this. I was only just starting photography too. Keeping it basic really made it easy. I had professional photographers telling me like you've got to do this and put this light balance on and then have this f stop and you got to shoot at this and have it at this angle and then all these other settings where you actually go deep into the camera settings. You've got to change stuff. I'm like okay. And then I had another friend who was, you know, one of the world class photographers. He's like literally hit these two buttons and you're fine. The other stuff, worry about down the track when you're selling prints and trying to make it a business. So no lightning trees. I've got one, I just don't use it. If a storm in the daytime is epic and just pumping out bolts, I'll flick it on because obviously I'm not going to be getting daytime bolts. I've got an ND filter which I'll admit I think it's actually faulty. It's really, it darkens weird spots and it's not very even. So I'm like, I'm sure it's faulty. [01:15:02] Speaker A: But is it, is it a variable? Variable indeed. [01:15:05] Speaker B: I think so, yeah. [01:15:07] Speaker A: Cheaper ones do darken spots. So yeah, yeah. Like if it wasn't like three or four hundred dollars it might have been just a cheaper one. That, that has, yeah, has a drama. [01:15:20] Speaker B: But yeah, outside of the, the base I've got a wide angle lens which is my predominant lens. They'll actually sit on my camera. That's I, I know it's a Sigma. I don't know, 14 to 22 mils. I think it's a sigma. It does the job 90 of the time for me. And then I've got the starter kit, regular lens, not the zoom lens, just that regular one you get with Every starter kit. Yeah. That actually does the job more than any other lens for me. Look, those two lenses are. I'll use 99 of the time and then I've got a 200mm lens and a 300 telephoto lens. [01:16:07] Speaker A: Okay. [01:16:08] Speaker B: Which I actually don't use anymore. That was more for like I was gonna try and get into Astro and it just. It's not my thing. But again, it's. It's been handy. I've had plenty of like tornadoes from 20 miles away where I've got a detailed shot of it because of the lens. But again with our chasing style, trying to get as close as possible. Now it's, you know, a turnaround lens. I'm. I'm looking through the tornado pretty much just. It would just be tornado in the photo. You won't even see the edges of it. You won't see the cloud based or, you know, anything detailed on the ground. The only time I'll probably bring that out is if. You know, I hate to say this, but when a house is getting vaporized in front of us, they're the actual. Yeah, yeah. It's getting in real close. We actually had it on that South Dakota tornado. I don't know if I've posted the photos from it, but I've got detailed shots where it's. You can physically make out like two by fours and framing of the house and doors and stuff that are going around the tornado. Just because I was so zoomed in on it. You can't even tell there's a tornado there, to be honest. You can just see the towing bits just floating. Yeah, it's. It's one of those things that I try not to use because I like the detail. I like being a little bit further back with my shots. I like being. It's a common thing that I've seen get said by some of these close range chases. Now it's chase close, shoot wide. So it's just get as close as you can and just shoot it out. [01:17:53] Speaker A: It's. It's a. It's. But that's a. It's goes with everything. And that's a really classic like photojournalism documentary. You know, like you. You've got to get close. [01:18:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:03] Speaker A: And. And you know, if. What. What are the settings, Jim? F8 and be there. Have you ever heard that one? That's it. [01:18:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:13] Speaker A: It's like. Yeah, yeah. And. But it will basically because that people always ask about what settings do you use? And it's like, you know, it's more Important to actually be there to get the shot than it is to be worried, you know, about. [01:18:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I had that on the South Dakota tornado too. I was actually. I freaked out a bit halfway through because we're. We're driving and photographing and I'm. I'm multitasking so many things and I'm. I never actually looked at my settings before I even started taking photos. I'm like, oh, crap, this thing's been, like, mega photogenic. And I may have just stuffed every photo. And it was like. I think I was shooting like one over a thousand F8 and like 200 ISO and it's like, okay, that's. I probably wouldn't want those settings, but I can get away with it. I mean, the photos have come up fine, so I'm not going to lose sleep over them. But, yeah, it's one of those things. I'm very basic with settings. Just make sure. First, the thing I always go off is just make sure it looks good on the back of the camera or through the lens. Either. Either way. Through the eyepiece or on the back of the camera. If it looks good to start with, that's the general basis of. It should look good when you've actually taken the photo too. [01:19:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. Nathan says photography teacher used to say, if it doesn't look good, you aren't close enough. [01:19:36] Speaker B: Yeah, fair. I can relate to. [01:19:40] Speaker A: So I wanted to bring up. There's some. Yeah, there's some cool shots going back a little bit that I was looking at. Where are we? Share this instead. Anyway. Okay. [01:19:51] Speaker B: Are you gonna dive back? [01:19:54] Speaker A: No, not that far. These just come up when I was. Hang on. No, there we go. It's cool. [01:20:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that was just. That's actually one of my favorite days. It's an underrated day for me. That was a phone shot just straight down the train line. And I was actually playing with a turtle in front of me while I took this photo. Playing with a turtle. We found a little baby turtle on the train line. We're like, we'll obviously pick it up and get it off the train line, but then we're just sitting there playing with. Was really chilling. Yeah, that was a wild day because it was like Dallas was the obvious or the. The meteorological obvious play. But there were a lot of things in the morning that I hated about Dallas. I. I try not to chase in cities, obviously, because, you know, look at. Look at what I've got to work with from a view. Like I've got nothing in front of me apart from a couple of power poles. So cities are always difficult, especially in peak hour as well. And then like your big cities, Dallas and Chicago, Houston, all these biggest cities are obviously just a nightmare. It'd be like trying to chase a storm through Sydney city during peak hours. That's a recipe for disaster. And there were several things I hated about this day and Colorado is the next day. So I said, we woke up in Abilene two and a half hours to get to Dallas. We're sitting there having lunch. We're like, we're delaying it. We're delaying it, which, like, we probably need to make a move if we're gonna go. And then I just said, okay. I'm like, look, you don't forecast, you don't make decisions about this because it's, you know, it's my thing. She's not a meteorologist. I'm just like, do you want to go? She's like, no, not really. If you've said this, there's like four things that we tick off for a negative day. And it ticked all four boxes. I'm like, okay, let's. Let's not go. Let's get up to. Amarillo will be an hour and a half, two hours from tomorrow's target. Good. You know, Amarillo's got a million hotels and stuff. And we got up there and there were two supercells still going. We're like, well, instead of going to dinner at 6 o', clock, 7 o', clock, let's go for a chase. Like, we're not gonna lose anything out of it. And we got under one. I think this was the first one we got under that. It produced some large sale. Just a high base supercell, photogenic, nice bell wall cloud. That's where the structure just comes down and then makes that kind of typical church bell shape. And then that other one just developed out of nowhere and became this insane photogenic lp, low precipitation supercell that it got this. I mean, you can see it there. It's got like the 50, 50 lighting. Yeah, the sun just erupted on the top of it, and then it got completely darkened out on the bottom half of it. And we're with a tour group there, and we're just having like the time of our lives. And I'm looking at radar and Dallas is getting just rain. I'm like, well, you know, I'm glad I didn't go there. And that. That's just one of those left field plays that America can do that you don't really see in Australia. I think actually that 5050 shots. Not only DSR shot. I think the rest of these are just phone shops. Yeah, that's the one I put effort in for editing and stuff when I got back to the hotel. [01:23:16] Speaker A: What, speaking of editing, like, what. What's your approach with editing? How. How far do you go? What, what, like, what rules do you have? Do you ever remove anything or add anything? Like, not obviously not add anything, but like, do you ever remove anything distracting or are you literally just like. It is what it is. I just need to get the colors right. [01:23:37] Speaker B: I will remove power poles and power lines if they're really bugging me. But a weird thing with tornadoes is some of the most photogenic tornadoes in the world have been. Or some of the highest rated photos of tornadoes in the world have actually been with power lines or power poles. It just gives that scale. Like we all know what a power pole looks like, how tall they are. And then obviously when you get them, you know, these massive tornadoes right next to them, it's kind of a good scale, or at least that's what the people racing those photos have said. That's probably my extent of removing stuff. Obviously. Watermarks, smudges, dust marks, all that sort of stuff I'll put effort into removing. Typically I don't have them, which is good. And then with editing, I've kind of just had the policy of realistic but popping. I try and obviously get it. Obviously every photographer would know that cameras are horrendous with actually picking up the realistic light. They always pull in a lot of extra light, especially in these sort of dynamic settings. We've got really obscure light and contrast. Sometimes you just have the sun coming through at a horrendous angle. Or like tornadoes, they're either one or two colors. They're white if the sun's on them and they're dark if it's not. The problem, though, we sometimes get is when there's light coming across us and the tornado is dark. And it's like you're kind of going on a dark storm with a dark tornado that you can't really differentiate between. That's sometimes actually why we love getting close. Because it. Regardless of what the actual storm looks like, you kind of can't see the actual storm. It's. You've just got the tornado. [01:25:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:25:31] Speaker B: So I. I try and make it, the tornado stand out. But I mean, even in some of the photos you've shown, I've pulled back so many colors because I just look at them like that, it looks almost AI like. And I'm like It's like it was real. That's what it looked like. And I'm like, no, I'll say like that, that 50, 50 shot, it was. I pulled back the oranges and yellows. I'm like, it almost looks like the storm's getting burnt. There was that much color on it. But then, you know, I've got videos of it where it actually looked like that. And I'm like, I'll pull it back a bit. But there's only so much I can do before it starts to not look as good as what it really did. [01:26:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:26:12] Speaker C: Do you, do you have rules? So like with some of our photography, we've got rules for if we're shooting say people outside and stuff. We'll generally use say the sun behind the subject. Do you have any rules with like. [01:26:25] Speaker A: Obviously trying to get harder, like trying to set up. [01:26:29] Speaker C: Yeah. Trying to get photos. Yeah, I guess obviously getting in the right spot is probably the first thing. [01:26:36] Speaker B: But then, yeah, it comes down to being in the right spot first. Outside of that, it's kind of work with what you've got. Finding compositions is really hard. There's a couple of photography tours that do tornado chasing. They'll go find old barns, abandoned houses, individual trees in paddocks. Like a lot of tornado alley is farmland. It's the middle of the country. The Midwest is corn crops and general food crops as a broad umbrella. And then through Texas and stuff, you've got oil fields that are just vast open plains. The one thing I got told when I started out was if. If you're going for a composition, because I was never big on compositions when I first started. I didn't understand the concept of it until I grew up a bit with, with photography and, you know, became more mature with it. And one thing I got told was make it natural. And a man made object never looks as good as a natural one for a composition. So like, you know, trees, I know in. In wa, you've got the bottle trees. They're, you know, composition galore. Mulany's got one tree hill that is so commonly done for weddings and the rest trees and those sort of things are great crop fields where the whole crop is covering the foreground. It's not like bare patches and stuff. That looks awesome. And then I think probably just abandoned houses. They've always had that kind of cool appeal. And a weird one that has always. It's probably more to do with social media now, but a weird composition I found that works is destruction. And it's really harsh to Say because obviously we hate seeing houses and people level and you know, lives destroyed and stuff. But some of the most iconic photos that do go viral, you know, three or four houses completely flattened and they just piles of debris and then you've got this massive tornado in the background. It's like that did that. It's, you've just come straight behind the path and we've done that several times. It always looks good, but it's one of those things like it's, it's really, it's a touchy subject. It's, it's like a moral gray area of what you're supposed to do. But yeah, it. [01:29:17] Speaker A: Shows the power of it though, which is, is very hard to do when it's not, it's not sort of having an effect on anything. But yeah, obviously, obviously. It also kind of depends what you're doing with the images and whether it's taking advantage of every, anyone that's had, yeah, their life upended or if it is just documenting it for the sake of, of sharing as opposed to like, you know, selling prints of it or whatever. I don't know. Like. Yeah, it's, yeah, it is, it's weird. [01:29:46] Speaker B: There's definitely a big part of getting the photo is being in the right spot and working with what you've got. Because I mean like, like I said before with this, plenty of tornadoes we've seen that we don't even take a photo of because it's like the composition or the contrast is that horrible a lot of the time now and, and actually a lot of tornadoes will be short lived. There's obviously what we see back home in Australia from the US is like these violent monsters, 99 of them or 95 of them or something are tornadoes that last less than two minutes. By the time you actually see the tornado get set up, get shots, it's like it's over. We got a great tornado in Silverton, Texas this year. I got about a minute of live stream footage. It's one of the, I think the only time I actually live streamed this year. We're just sitting on this road, got some cool shots, had really nice green pastures in front of us, a couple of silos off in the distance. Big tornado or not big, but a thin, tall tornado right in front of us from a distance. And I, I said, do you want to get close to it? We got in the car, turned right, it dissipated. I'm like, we just missed some cool opportunities for photos. But yeah, it's one of those things that we try and move to a better spot if we've got a terrible spot. But a lot of the time the tornado would be like, well, you didn't like what I was showing you, so how about you just don't see me at all? [01:31:20] Speaker A: Yeah, all right. I'm mindful of time because I, I can't stay on all night tonight because I've got, I've got a ton of podcasts tomorrow morning. Not for this one, for something else. It's a secret but. So first of all, for the people listening that had sent some images in, we might hold them off again until Greg's back next week, which is only going to affect Bruce, David, David, Lucinda and Nathan. You guys won't mind, surely? Sorry. You'll be fine. We'll wait till next week because that way I can ask the last couple of questions that I want to ask which was, oh, first of all, Paul Henderson wants to know, have you ever thought of using OM systems cameras? Have you heard of OM systems? Have you ever heard of them, Thomas? [01:32:07] Speaker B: I haven't. That's, that's a good starting point. [01:32:10] Speaker A: They used to be called Olympus. [01:32:13] Speaker B: Yep, I know of the Olympus brand and stuff. [01:32:15] Speaker A: Yeah, so it's the same stuff. They've got micro four thirds sensors. So they've got smaller sensors than even your current crop sensor camera has but they've got a lot of advanced like he's talking about live composite mode for lightning. It's got a, they've got built in ND filters, they've got some computational stuff. They're actually really small as well. The other advantage potentially of those for what you do would be depth of field. The smaller sensor is the greater depth of field that you get. So you could have your aperture open wider in darker situations but still get a wide depth of field. But I don't know, be an option. Have you thought about new gear yet or are you still you just like happy cruising along? [01:32:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm happy with what I've got. But it is one of those things that when we get back every year it's always what can we do that improves our content next year? Because it is all about content production. We are doing it for fun. But at the same time, I mean I've looked at my page sometimes I haven't posted for five days and that's actually my biggest stress in the state, bar none. I, I could be inside a tornado and I'll have more stress over social media because it's like people know I'm over there, they're following along with the journey and all that. And it's like Thomas hasn't posted for four or five days. Like, are you actually doing anything? It's like, no, we've been chasing. We just haven't had anything that's worth posting. So we're always looking to improve the content, production and obviously New year, different gear. It's all under that same umbrella of what can do the job easier for us and better for us. I think ease always has to come into it because we are doing so many things. But of course we're not going to do easy. But worse, I'd rather put in the effort. So one thing we are looking at already is not so much for photography, but we are looking at getting set up properly for live streaming and video production. It will just mean that now we can sit there and video out the front windscreen. If we want to do extra videos ourselves, we can, but everything's gonna be at that front windscreen, which means now we can photograph ourselves for longer. One of Katie's biggest regrets from the year, and I. I actually don't want to. I really want the photo put up on the wall. It's from our North Dakota tornado that we had. That was that big dark one where I was shooting out the window with the rain coming in. She never got a photo. And it's. It's her biggest hate from the entire season. I feel so bad for her because she was sitting there with a. With both my phone and her phone filming while we're driving up this thing. And she was freaking out because we're getting super close. And it was like, it actually looked like it was gonna backtrack onto us again. That though. That what I had to tell her in the moment was like, that's my thing. I. I know what I'm doing and not putting her down, but it's like I understood why she was freaking out, but at the same time, like, I'm trying to focus on so many other things. I know we're not going to die right now. And I never even thought about it that she never got a photo. I'm like, we need to fix that next year. And that, yeah, new, New year will help that. Just spreading that workload in the car, even though there's only two of us still, you know, if the car can do half the job for us by sticking a mount on the windscreen and having a camera there, then that makes life easier. She would have been holding a camera then, and, you know, to be fair, we probably would have got more shots. It would have been Filmed better. She probably could have taken shots with my camera while I was driving. So, no, we're always looking at stuff. And obviously, you know, that suggestion. I could easily go and research it and, yeah. Discuss it with other chasers. [01:36:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:36:17] Speaker B: We've got virtually every brand of cameras probably covered across the chase scene in our chaser friend group. Certainly video cameras are covered, and it won't take long for me to find someone that's probably using it already. Plenty of stuff, too, that, you know, we just haven't heard about before. And one of our friends would be like, oh, hey, I've just got this and it just got ordered today. And I'm getting three lenses for this and then another SD card for this. I'm like, I haven't heard of any of that. And you're just, like, willingly just, like, glazing over the fact that you know everything about it already. So, yeah, it's one of those things that we can certainly discuss with. With everyone. [01:36:58] Speaker A: That's. That's awesome that you've got a. Like a crew and a community of people that you can. Everyone can talk to each other about that kind of stuff. You can. Yeah. Ask someone that's bought a camera that you think might work or whatever. And, yeah, that's really great because you don't always have that when you're trying to do, you know, do something like you're doing. No, you don't always have a crew of people. [01:37:20] Speaker B: It's definitely better having seen the end product because obviously we probably see the photos getting posted by our friends before we even know what they're using. And, you know, having that kind of mini look into what the camera, video camera, whatever it is, can do, it obviously makes it a lot better. Their editing styles are obviously different to mine as well, which it always matters. But, I mean, I'm probably at the point now where I'm mature enough to look past the editing. I'm like, I don't really care how you edit it. I'm looking at, like, the quality of the photo. I know where you were chasing. We were probably chatting, probably messaging each other while we're next to the tornado. We do that. We'll sit in the car and just be on messenger to each other. It's like, oh, my God, this is amazing. And I know how close you were, so I know all the background to how you got that shot. And then I can see the quality of the shot and see obviously, I trust that they've obviously taken the photo. Right. To begin with. [01:38:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:38:30] Speaker B: And how did it focus and everything. And they generally do because, like I said before, it's their job. Yeah. And, you know, getting that background view is. Is great just before we even go and look at purchasing or something. [01:38:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:38:45] Speaker B: And I do remember the question earlier too, about do we meet up with people or converse with other people? We actually. We do it our own. So it's just me and Katie in the car. We've got a really tight group of friends that are regarded as the best in the world. One of our friends, Aaron Rigsby, was named Storm Chaser of the Year last year. It is like this little mini logie thing for storm chasers, which is solely for Americans. Yeah, pretty much. It's just for Americans. I'm trying to get it changed for internationals as well because we. Our name keeps getting put up for internationals and it's like, I don't care, but it would be cool. Just have a little fun. Trophy. He is the best. And, you know, I've got other friends that are great, too. So we all chat. It's like, you know, have you seen this set up for this day? Whenever, like, oh, are you going to this specific location? Like, what. Where are you right now, this second? We often just get a general ballpark. Once we're at like a gas station or something together, or we're all coming in from different directions on the film, we'll probably just flick messenger on and just share location. Outside of that, we won't even message. The only messages you end up seeing on, like a storm day is 15 messages in a row being like, location, started location, ended location. So, yeah, it's. We pretty much do it ourselves. And I like it like that. I've had issues. Every chase has had issues when you've got too many heads in the car. It's really good having Katie, who's not at that, like, nerd, meteorologist, storm chaser level. She knows enough to help, but it's like, I don't have another opinion coming in. I've had it with other chases where we both, you know, want to target different areas. We both know what we're talking about. You end up going to one, it doesn't work, the other one does. And you're like, that's where a fight will start. That's where disharmony happens. So it's good to have a friendship group that's not like that. But outside of that, we. We're happy to talk about, like, fantasy football and stuff and what the storms are actually doing, or if we all got on one storm, we Might nerd about it for a couple of weeks, especially in front of that one or two friends that weren't there out of choice just to be a little bit toxic for five minutes in the friendship group. But yeah, that's just getting sidetracked there. I did remember that question. [01:41:18] Speaker A: Yeah, well, Bruce Moyle says community is super valuable and I agree, it definitely is. So this is the last question. Then I'll definitely. We'll have to get out of here. So in Australia, storm chasing can be a thing. It's not like this. There's not tornadoes and stuff everywhere. But great photos can be taken for muppets like us that have no idea other than we know that it might be stormy in the next couple of days. But how do you learn how to be able to get yourself in a position to get a storm, like a storm front or, you know those photos, those crazy photos you see where you can just see this massive cloud formation or something like that. How do you begin to learn the. To, to be able to identify when that might be able to happen and get yourself into a location to get a photo like that In Australia, like. [01:42:14] Speaker B: Yeah, so yeah, in Australia it's a little bit more difficult. In America, I've always said to people getting the storm is not the hard bit, that I can walk out the door in a target area and get a storm. In America, we're obviously looking for very specific things. In Australia, I look for a lot broader things. But firstly, you do need to have some sort of understanding of general meteorology. So storms need three things. Heat, moisture and a trigger. I think most Australians recognize that heat is like heat and humidity is like, it's a big storm day in the middle of summer. But heat is any form of heat. I've, I've chased tornadoes in 6 degrees in Oklahoma before at 4 o' clock in the morning. I've, I've chased tornadoes in, you know, 7 degrees, 8 degrees in Colorado, I've been in like thermals chasing tornadoes. So heat is any form of heat. It's all about what the actual environment's doing. So that's where it becomes a little more complicated. We have capping inversions, which are warm layers of air just above the surface that can actually make hot and humid days be even muggier because all that humidity gets trapped in the bottom kilometer of the atmosphere and it's not getting dispersed through the entire atmosphere. And you're like, oh, it's roasting. And it's, it's. I'm sweating in an air con today. But I'm not getting a storm. And it's like yeah, because there's a capping inversion that's preventing that. That's the reason why you're sweating in the aircon. So you need heat and humidity. That can be anything as long as you've got a trigger in the right setup. A trigger is often a cold front or a trough. There are other triggers like if you've got really complicated, a sea breeze front which is where you get that cool change come in. I know people in Western Australia know it as the Fremantle doctor. Most coastal areas in Australia have some sort of sea breeze in the afternoon that ends up just being a wind boundary. So you get all the hot air going to the coast. Sea breeze pushes it back from the coast and that line between the two is where a storm can develop. But just having a general understanding or basic understanding of those three elements and how to look for them on a model, it goes a long way. If you know where the trough is, you know you've got to be in front of that trough because a storm is going to develop on it and obviously go east or northeast most of the time. Storms can go in any, in any direction with the mid level setup which is our winds at like 3, 4, 5 kilometers above the, above the surface. But if you, if you know where the trough is, you know where the instability is which is from that heat and humidity, then you've got a general idea of okay, there should be storms in this area. Where I would go from there is if I'm going real basic. If you've got an area from say Coffs harbor to Harvey Bay that has storm potential, I would personally sit, I would pick two spots and sit in the middle a lot of the time because it's like you kind of on the fence hedging your bet. If a storm was to go to my north I can go. If it goes to the west I can go. We do that a lot in the States. Even on these real specific setups we'll sit in between two targets and just be like it's one hour either way. I don't want to over commit to one and the other one goes. I think every chase has done that and been burnt. And in America you get burnt badly. In Australia, luckily you don't. But no, I, I generally sit between two or say I've got the radar up on my other screen here and I'm Charleville to St. George out in western Queensland or southern inland Queensland. If it troughs out there I would sit at like, Gundiwindi or Roma, somewhere well east, where I can let the storms develop and come at me because they're not going to be the most amazing thing when they first develop. They take time. They take 20 or 30 minutes to actually start to get going, feed off that environment, move into a better environment, too, because right on that trough line, they've actually got dry air coming straight in behind them because that's the other side of the trough. Human on one side, dry on the other side. I typically try and let them develop a bit, come at me and then. I mean, a lot of times, luck's not the right word, but it kind of is. It's. Yeah, I've done it before. One of my first chases back in, like 2014 or 13, we were chasing a tornadic. It actually did produce a tornado. It was tornadic supercell near Gundiwindi. We got a funnel. It wasn't a tornado, but it produced one much earlier, before we got onto it. And then there was another supercell up at Chinchilla that went up to the south of Emerald. Both developed in the same environment. Both had the same ingredients to work with. Ours looked like trash. There was no structure. It was gray. If it didn't produce a funnel, I wouldn't even remember the storm. Meanwhile, the one up in chinchilla was throwing 10 centimeter stones 20 kilometers in front of it. It had this Armageddon teeth structure out the front of it. And like, it was the same environment. Like, that's the luck. Yeah, but, yeah, it's. It's one of those things that you obviously need. You need to know the general understanding of where these systems develop first. And then once you learn that, you can just build on it. Kind of like learning a camera, you'll start to play with more intricate things. You'll start to chase more specifically. And kind of like a camera, you'll play with different settings that you probably didn't even know were there to start with. [01:48:26] Speaker A: Bruce Moyle says there's a whole course right here that could be a side hustle. Yeah. Teaching photographers that don't understand the weather how to. How to find interesting weather. It's. [01:48:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. [01:48:38] Speaker A: It's something that I've always envied those photos where it's just a huge storm front or something like that. And. And I've never shot anything like that ever. [01:48:50] Speaker B: It is. [01:48:51] Speaker A: You got to put yourself in the situation. [01:48:54] Speaker B: But the art's not in the photo. It's getting into the right spot. Like we said before. [01:48:58] Speaker A: Exactly. [01:49:00] Speaker B: Once you learn that, I mean the easiest way, I've told school kids who want to do this and I do this on these school talks in front of parents too. And parents are like, do I want them doing? It's like my first rule is start local. Like you want to love to drive, you need to know how to drive. But start local. Go no more than 5 or 10 kilometers. You know every road in your neighborhood. You know where a gas station is or a petrol station. You know where the local library is. You know where the local pool is that has undercover. If you were getting into a bad situation, you know where your home is. You've got all your safety points are just in the back of your mind. You know every road and where to go. You know where your views are. Start local. Let a storm come to you and try and position yourself on it. Try and get out of the way before it's too late. Get hit. It's actually not a bad thing to get hit. If you want to be a storm chaser. You're going to go through rain and hail through your life. I've been there and done it all. I've been hit with baseball hail on my back and it's left welts and bone bruising and stuff. I've had cuts all down my legs from, you know, tripping through barbed wire trying to run away from a tornado and try and get back in the car. And I flipped on mud and went straight through the fence. I, this is always a climb one, but I have been struck by lightning. [01:50:26] Speaker A: What? [01:50:27] Speaker B: Yeah, just to drop that in there. I got very lucky with that. But it, it's, you're going to have mishaps. It's, it's not perfect. You don't know we know what's happening, but you don't actually know what's happening next. You know that photogenic tornado in South Dakota? No one could have told me it was going to do that in my, in the moment. I couldn't believe it. But it's kind of like we did actually forecast at that day. We, we matched it against five other tornadoes that, that set up, that actually end up looking kind of like that one. So start local and then expand. So for me, I grew up in North Brisbane. You know, chase north Brisbane and then when I get confident there after 3, 4, 5, 10, 20 chases, there's no limit. Go to southeast Queensland, maybe you go down to Bo Desert, maybe go to Buna, Ipswich, Toowoomba, expand a bit. You still know those general roads. You still know. Yeah, you're getting a little bit unfamiliar, but it's. It's teaching you to. To work with the unfamiliar, unfamiliarity and then expand further. Go out to the Darling Downs, go to northern New South Wales, you know, Central Queensland. You want to keep expanding, but that's where you start to learn, you know, how to be on storms and how to move with storms. Yeah, there's plenty of times I've chased the Sunshine coast and Gold coast, and I'm just watching a storm go out to sea because I have no more roads. You learn all these things, and it's just one of those things that once you get confident with one, you can expand. Yeah, it. It's definitely an art to it. And obviously, like every professional, there's some people that are really good. I. I like to think I'm one of them. There's some people that aren't. And, yeah, at the same time, there's nothing wrong with that. I've told plenty of people who've become storm chasers, like, you don't have to get close. You don't have to do these things that you see on TV and stuff. We do that because we're comfortable. I'm never scared like, in the tornado. It actually heightens my focus so much if I'm next to a tornado. Like, I'm not thinking about, you know, are the Broncos gonna beat the Roosters this weekend? I'm like, I've got two out here, and I have to thread the needle between them. And I haven't stuffed that up yet. There will be a day that I probably do stuff it up, but it's that heightened focus and stuff. If people aren't comfortable doing that, that's fine. There was a famous thing in Texas. It was a time lapse. A cop, he actually had storm chasing as his side thing. He was a cop, you know, worked five days a week, all the stupid shifts, and whenever he could get off, he went to this one hill all the time and did a time lapse. And just. It was a time lapse of storms whenever they were coming past. I don't remember what year it was, but his product went viral because one year he actually got a tornado. He set up the time lapse, and the tornado went straight across his camera. And it was like it was 30 miles away. To me. It's like, that's too small, but you can see it. But again, he wasn't comfortable getting closer. That's fine. You don't have to be close. It's just enjoy it. You know, there's no storm that's ever looked the same to me. We get tornadoes that have the same shapes and whatever, and. But there's no storm that I've actually ever been like that. And that were identical. And I need to, you know, can I get a third one like that now? They're similar, but you're like, oh, my God, this one was awesome because I was 300 meters closer than that one, and, you know, I had a different lighting and stuff and the colors. The art of failing a chase makes the chase epic. If we always wish that we could be like, oh, I want to see three days in the future and nowhere to go. The fact that I missed 28 tornadoes this year that I should have gotten made me love the 58 that I got. [01:54:39] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. If it was easy, it wouldn't be as fun or rewarding. [01:54:46] Speaker B: It was easy. Everyone would do it. [01:54:47] Speaker A: Well, that's true, too. That is true. I reckon we should leave it on that. I think that was a great, great episode. Thank you very much. [01:54:56] Speaker B: Thank you Very, very happy to come on and chat. I mean, photography is not my most amazing quality that I've got, and to actually talk to people about, it's kind of. That's really cool for me, because the first time I've ever done something with photography, so really happy that we could chat. [01:55:15] Speaker A: That's awesome. Like, you should be very proud of the work that you're creating. It's. It's. It's. We always talk about it. We've said it a thousand times. Well, maybe not a thousand times on this podcast. We've said a lot that knowing your subject is so much more important for photography than just knowing how a camera works. You know, like, understanding a subject deeply is the important way to get great images. And. And that's what you're doing. That's the direction that you're coming at it from. And that's. That's why the images are amazing. So congratulations. And basically, from there. [01:55:48] Speaker C: Hang on. [01:55:49] Speaker A: Oh, hang on. We've lost him. We've lost him. He's ran out of batteries. That's right. That's funny. We'll get to call it out to run the show. That's hilarious. Can you hear us? Hang on, hang on. I'll unmute you. I think I've got you. No, can't unmute. Because this is very funny. You might have to unmute yourself, Thomas. There'll be a mute button somewhere. You can press the little microphone thing near your head. [01:56:23] Speaker C: Down the bottom, down the bottom. Can see It. [01:56:27] Speaker A: I don't know if you got it or not. Sure it is. [01:56:33] Speaker B: I was physically clicking on my actual face. I was like, that's not working. [01:56:38] Speaker A: That's so funny. All right. And now that he's back, we'll go like, all right, great show. What else do I have to say? Oh, tell everyone to buy a camera strap if you need one. Greg would be sad. He normally does all the ads and things that we do. Paul Henderson says, I hope Thomas has of a lot lucky strap on his camera. Don't forget to use code Greg for a discount. We will. If you do, if you do, if you do want a nice new leather camera strap for your chasing, let us know. We'll. We'll hook you up. But we'll email you about that. [01:57:13] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I. I definitely do. I actually lost my glasses in a tornado this year. I said I was running after them with my cap. My camera was actually strapped over me. I'm running after my glasses through a. This person's demolished house. I'm like, this is. This is not how this is supposed to be going now. [01:57:31] Speaker A: That's like a scene from a movie. Cool. All right, we will call it. I'm gonna call out some comments on the way out. I'll play some music. And thanks again, Thomas. That was epic. [01:57:46] Speaker B: No worries. [01:57:47] Speaker C: Thank you very much, Thomas. Cheers. [01:57:49] Speaker A: All right. And thanks very much to. Thanks very much to David Leporardi. We'll get to your images next week's show for Philip Johnson. Great to see you. Bruce Moyle, always awesome. Robert Varna, thanks for. Thanks for joining us and all your comments, especially the lightning bolt comment. That one was great. Rodney Nicholson, Good to see you, everybody. Paul, Nathan. [01:58:11] Speaker C: Phillip. [01:58:12] Speaker A: Phillip. Yeah. Greg Stubbings. I only just saw this before. Anyway, we'll catch you on the next one. [01:58:20] Speaker C: Hey, guys. Thank you.