It’s been raining three days in a row and sometimes heavily:
Finally, northern Illinois is beginning to emerge from the drought.
It’s the perfect weather for contemplation and handling details for my upcoming storm chase trip. During the off-season, I’ve done lots of reading, ingesting books like Tim Vazquez’s “Weather Radar Handbook” (ORANGE BOOK).
In anticipation of chasing for ten days with famed storm photographer Jim Reed, I read “STORM CHASER: A Photographer’s Journey”.
I had intended to go through it over several days, but read through it in a single sitting (unlike the ORANGE BOOK, which I’ve been nibbling at for weeks). I felt it would be beneficial to read Jim’s book to better understand him and his guiding principals of storm photography.
As it turns out, Jim and I have had interesting parallels in our lives:
| Jim Reed | Lisa Beal | REMARKS | |
| Born | Springfield, Illinois | Rockford, Illinois | Also close to the same age |
| Raised in Midwest? | Yup | Yup | _ |
| Non-traditional family | Raised by single mom | One of three adopted children. Raised by almost-single mom until 10. (Dad traveled 5-6 days a week.) |
We may have watched the Brady Bunch, but we were not members! |
| 1st memorable storm | Hurricane Camille (with mom) |
Belvidere, IL tornado (with dad) |
Dominant parent present during first memorable storm experience gave a sense that “everything’s going to be OK” (and it was). |
| Moved from Midwest | to West Coast (California) | to East Coast (to New York) | Off to the big city! |
| Returned to Midwest | Kansas | Illinois | Returned after college in both cases |
| Einstein connection | Ja! | Ja! | God may not play dice with the universe, but he seems to be good at poker. I remember this during storm chases! |
| 1960s TV connection | Gilligan’s Island | Gilligan’s Island | Theory: the seven characters on Gilligan’s Island represent the Seven Deadly Sins. (What would Dawn Wells think of that?) |
| Dedicated chase vehicle | Ford Explorer (as of 2006) |
Chrysler Town&Country (from 2011-date) |
_ |
| Seen lots of tornadoes | 40+ | about 30 (I’m re-checking) |
Easily half of those I’ve seen were with Tempest Tours. Saw 6 on 10 May 2004 afternoon near Limon, Colorado. (“Thank you, Dr. Weberpal!”) |
| Winter photography experience | First chapter in the book captures this | Several photos from Antarctica used on Oprah for Jerri Nielsen’s appearance. | Jim will be supplying 2013 Tempest Tour 2B guests with signed copies of his book during the tour! |
| Camera collection | Nikon-sanctioned photographer | Started with Pentax while working for the Antarctic Program | OK, Nikon! I’m tired of Pentax stuff being ‘niche gear’ that’s both expensive AND hard to find. |
We’ll have plenty to talk about on the trip. I’ll have to remind myself that there will be a dozen people vying for his time, including Jim Reed.
To hear Jim speak about our trip, check out this YouTube video ( 2:14-):
Extended Interview: Jim Reed, extreme weather photographer (KRCG)