From The Sunday Times
October 28, 2007
A Life in the Day: Mike Hollingshead
The professional photographer and video-maker, 31, exhibits his remarkable images of storms, tornadoes, capped cumulus clouds and all forms of unstable weather on his website, www.extremeinstability.com. He lives alone in Blair, Nebraska
Interview by Danny Scott
The time I get up depends on where the storms are. If I’m driving from Blair, Nebraska to, say, the Texas Panhandle — about 700 miles — I might be up around 4.30 and on the road by 6. I always know where I’m going, because I check the models [weather websites] the night before, and look for areas where different winds are coming together. You need that convergence to get storms going. Most of the action happens from the Panhandle up through Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota — what they call Tornado Alley.
I might check the latest radar when I wake up, but I don’t spend much time on the computer in the morning. I like to get on the road. The Mustang’s gas tank’s always filled up the night before and I get the gear ready by the door — laptop, cameras, overnight bag, in case I have to stay in a motel, and spare contact lenses. Losing them in a storm wouldn’t be too smart! If there’s time, I go to my parents’ house and take the dogs for a walk. I’ve actually missed a couple of great storms because I was taking the dogs out. My parents weren’t too crazy about me chasing storms in the early days, but they’ve kind of got used to it. I’ve grown up with storms. Up until a couple of years ago I was doing it for fun, but now I’ve got the website up and running, it’s sort of my job.
I always eat my breakfast in the car —maybe a Rice Krispie bar and a can of Pepsi. I don’t like to eat too much if I’m chasing. It cuts down the times I have to stop. A good day’s driving is about six hours to the storm, but I often drive 10 or more. I should take some CDs, but I never get round to it. I just punch around on the radio. I always seem to find classical music — it can really fit the mood.
Lunch doesn’t mean anything. I just grab another can of Pepsi and a Rice Krispie bar when I stop to get some gas — every 300 miles or so. I can do almost 400 on a full tank, but I don’t like to let the gauge get below a quarter full.
By noon the satellite images will be coming in, so I’ll log on to the internet. I’ve got a connection from the laptop to my cellphone, which means I can log on from the car. Storm season is usually April till June and, as the day starts to heat up, there’ll be a bit more activity. If you’re going to catch a storm, you need to see some powerful cumulus clouds by 3 or 4 in the afternoon. You’re looking for capped cumulus clouds. Not the tall, towering ones. You want them a lot flatter. That means things are more unstable. I know what I’m looking for, but I’m not an expert. I did study meteorology at college. Not for long, though. I thought: “Screw this!”
I wanted to be outside with the weather.
Some storms are a couple of miles across and up to 70,000ft high. Really good ones are known as supercells: that’s a severe thunderstorm with a constant flow of warm air. They look like solid structures. We call them “motherships”.
The sound of a tornado is more like a waterfall than anything else, but what can be very loud is hail hitting your car — anything from pea-size to baseball-size. Severe storms can have a constant roll of thunder, too. I mean constant, with no let-up. That can drop off to nothing as soon as a tornado forms, but it can also have the opposite effect, and there’ll be a ton of lightning after then.
The feel of a storm is quite sticky, especially in summer, where the dew point can exceed 80F. And in spring, raging surface winds can fill the air with dirt. I’ve seen debris tossed all over the place. And some of the storms have multiple vortexes — that looks kinda cool.
One of the scariest chases was when I first started out. A tornado in the hills outside Logan, Nebraska. I ended up having to shelter at a gas station and when I came out the town was unrecognisable — it had been ripped apart. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t panicked so early. I wish I’d got a better look. That decision still drives me crazy.
I’ve got some window clamps for the camera, so I just pull up sideways to the storm, wind down the window, stick on the clamp and shoot. I recently got a
10-22 lens — a really wide-angle, so I can get close but still get the whole thing in the frame. Usually the dynamic range of what I’m seeing is a lot more than any camera can handle, so I set the exposure lock on one of the highlights. You need as much light in there as possible.
If I’m close enough to home — up to a six-hour drive — I’ll drive back. If not, I’ll get a motel. Because I’ve only been snacking all day, I get pretty hungry. If I see a Burger King, I’ll stop there, but I might end up with a sandwich and a packet of Pringles. I used to download my pictures straight after the chase, but now I tend to wait till the morning, when I can look at them properly.
I dream about storms a lot. Weird, crazy dreams full of panic because my camera won’t work or I’ve taken the wrong road. Sometimes I lie there thinking: “God, what am I doing with my life?” I’ve missed Mother’s Day, missed birthdays. I’ve even missed Christmas Day because of the weather. Then I check the models and I see that there might be something happening in the morning and I know it’ll start all over again.