If one were to only pay attention to social media they would think that 2016 was the most awful year known to man.  As for myself, I was pleased with the way the year went and had a lot of exciting things happen along the way and had some photos to show for it as well. So, without further ado I'd like to take a look back at what was an eventful 2016 for Southern Plains Photography.

Events
I never thought it would happen in a million years, but early 2016 saw me walk away from a good paying full time job to focus my time on weather and landscape photography.  The seeds were planted a couple of years ago but through hard work, long hours and dedication to my goal I made the leap and haven't looked back.  If there's one achievement other than getting married and having kids that I'll look to the rest of my life with pride it's this one.

Tornadoes
It was a great year overall for capturing shots of tornadoes, and I was lucky enough to be there for most of it although I did miss a couple of important events.  I'm a little bummed that I missed the beautiful Wray, CO tornado that everyone and their dog seemed to get, and I missed the powerful Wynnewood tornado in May.  On the flip side, I got to witness every single tornado that the Dodge City, KS storm produced...such a historic event.  It made up for everything I'd ever missed out on before.  Here are some photos of tornadoes I captured this season:

Places
It was such an incredible year to travel different places and get the opportunity to shoot some iconic scenes and not be rushed to move on.  I traveled to northern Arizona and saw Horseshoe Bend, Antelope Canyon and set my eyes upon the Grand Canyon for the first time.  I made my way to eastern Utah and shot Delicate Arch and spent time in Canyonlands National Park.  I spent a full week in the Grand Tetons letting my camera feast upon the most beautiful scenery in the world.  I also spent plenty of time in Rocky Mountain National Park, drove slowly over the Million Dollar Highway in southern Colorado, hung out on Bourbon Street in New Orleans and relaxed on the white sands of the Emerald Coast near Destin, Florida. All in all I visited 18 different states in a 12 month period.  I have quite a few more on the list for 2017.  Here are some shots I caught along the way:

These are just the highlights of what was an incredible year.  I could go on endlessly but it's time to look forward to an active 2017 with so many places to see and photograph ahead.  Thanks to everyone for their support, including my incredibly supportive wife and kids.  It's not easy being gone to spend time in these beautiful places but knowing that I have their support makes it all worthwhile.  Here's to a great year that was, and to even bigger things ahead!

Let's be honest.  When someone thinks of interior decoration the last thing they think about is storm clouds.  I get this question a lot:  "How does your photography fit into my theme?" And it's a valid question. Take a look around most places at their decor and you probably see some cityscapes, maybe an abstract painting or if it is a photo most likely it's of some local landmark, mountain or beach scenery. Most likely it could be there to match the colors in a room, or could be there to just cover bare walls without any intrinsic value. 

That's where alternative decoration in the form of storm or weather photography and landscapes steps in.  See, my art is designed to move people who view it.  And "moving" people can have a hundred  different meanings.  Some photos bring power and excitement, some are calming and relaxing.  I've had a few people purchase prints and hang them by the front door so on their way out or in they see the photos and it infuses them with a bit of calm and soothing before dealing with the stress of daily life at work, or helps them feel more relaxed after a long day at the office.

On the flip side, some of my photos are full of energy and unique scenes and are great conversation pieces when guests are over.  Who wouldn't walk into a room and notice the incredible colors popping out from the wall?  Imagine how you'll feel once you were asked where the photo was taken and asked to speak to it a bit.  It's art with a purpose.

Back to that question of "How does your photography fit in to my theme?"  The great thing about my subjects and the photographs I produce is that they fit well with just about any theme.  Of course, if you're into country style, rustic or any western theme it's a natural fit for any of those.  There are photos that I've produced that would fit right in with modern styles or even shabby chic.  Mostly though it's about attitude.  If you are designing for someone and want to bring a bit of edge or pop to their rooms or office buildings my photography is the perfect choice.  If you are looking to go a bit more earthy, what better choice than to go with nature in its purest form.  If you are looking to minimalize and need to find something subdued, you got it right here.  It works for homes, apartments, dorms, businesses, professional offices....you name it.

So it is alternative interior decoration at its best.  The great thing about not being a go to style is that it is unique and rare, something you have or can provide to a client that isn't like anything else around. It's an investment in emotion, style and personal flair.

I'm back at it again.  After doing pretty good in The Weather Channel's "It's Amazing Out There" photo contest it's time for my 2016 photo of the year to be submitted and voted upon.  Last year I went with "Jewel of the Plains" and it performed well and stayed in the top 20 in votes but never could climb into the upper tier.  This year I'm submitting "Invasion", a photo I took just north of Yukon, Oklahoma of a low precipitation supercell backlit by the sun.

So, if you stop by and read my blog or are just browsing through give a click and simply press the vote button once the window opens.  I thank you for your votes and we'll see how well we can do getting this one to the top!

I was pretty much like everyone else in the world.  Wake up, TV goes on and the news begins blaring immediately.  Get home, turn on the TV, watch the evening news and sit in my chair and watch some shows in the evening.  Go to bed, turn the tv off.  Rinse and repeat.

But, along the way things started bugging me.  I began seeing news stories in the media specifically worded to sound the alarms, create some kind of concern and started picking up on the meaningless information being passed along, sometimes lazily being picked up from social media.  TV shows in the evening were starting to become predictable and more annoying than ever.  I don't think anything changed in how things were being presented.  News and tv shows have a formula that has worked for ages.  No, I think that somewhere along the way I changed.  I started feeling like the relentless media presentation was more noise than anything.  I didn't want to hear teasers anymore, I didn't want to be sold to.  I wanted some quiet.

I remembered a time when I was much younger, sometime around 19 years old when I didn't have a television, much less cable.  And I remember more about life in that time than I ever had at any other time.  I needed to get back to this, back to where I wasn't worried about what the world was doing, but more worried about what I was doing.  I knew it wouldn't be easy because we now live in a world where media is everywhere.  Every minute, every second there is news or advertisements or something being thrown at you due to cable and the internet.

But,  I broke away.

About a year ago I turned off the cable and it got quiet in a hurry.  I picked up Netflix and Hulu for a total of $15 and watched them sparingly along the way.  My evenings all of a sudden started lasting longer, conversations became a little more in depth.  The relaxation factor increased tremendously.  No longer did I have to worry about something that happened 5000 miles away, no longer did I have the loud voice car guy yelling at me to buy a new car.  Was I disconnected from the world?  Yes, I was.  Did I miss it?  Nope.  I didn't feel bad about not joining in on the Facebook conversations about the latest uproar, and I didn't feel bad about things I couldn't control that were being delivered directly into my living room.  Being a big sports fan I was concerned about missing the big events, but that was easy to address.  I just hopped in the car and went to my local restaurant and met some good people and cheered alongside others. 

I do live in Oklahoma though and because I chase storms I know the importance of weather, so I ended up picking up an antenna so we could pick up the local stations when the weather got bad so when I'm out the family has a way to keep an eye on the weather.  Today when I turned on the antenna the national news was on.  Twenty five minutes of roller coaster accidents, floods, fires, presidential politics and a mass stabbing.  It reminded me of what I'm not missing, and it also reminded me that silence is golden.  I don't miss the noise.

This morning the town of Harrah, OK was awoken in the middle of the night by a 4.1 magnitude earthquake and a couple of hours later just a little further to the west a 4.0 earthquake shook the region.   This would be epic news just 10 years ago, seeing as how Oklahoma had basically no earthquakes in it's 100 year history.  But, in the last five years it's been shaken consistently by small to mid-level earthquakes that are increasing in activity and sometimes in intensity.

I've felt some of these quakes myself.  I felt one just as recently as last week, it woke me up at 4 a.m. and lasted for a few seconds.  I felt one when I lived in western Oklahoma when a quake over 5.0 shook the region.  I've even felt one at work that shook enough to make me think a forklift somehow drove into the wall. 

I was talking to a buddy the other day who had just moved here about a year ago.  He had always assumed Oklahoma had always had the quakes, just like tornadoes and drought.  I had to tell him that wasn't the case.  Up until 2008, we had basically no seismic activity and if you asked someone back then if they thought Oklahoma would ever experience an earthquake they would probably laugh.  No one is laughing now.

A lot of people are beginning to believe it could be caused by hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking".  It's really ironic since Oklahoma is one of the top oil and gas producing states, and some of the country's top oil and gas businesses reside here which contributes to the strong economy.  So, it will be interesting to see what side of the fence people who are living through these quakes everyday will fall to as it affects people's homes, investments and general safety.

State officials have begun looking into the quakes and have ordered studies to be done to see if a determination can be made as to what is causing them.  This is the first step to see if anything can be done to stop them.  Until then, we'll all have to deal with the shaking along with the twisting skies.  Oklahoma can be called a lot of things, but you can't say it isn't interesting around here.

I'm really not sure how it is for everyone else.  Does the rest of the world see or read something when they are young that actually inspires or makes such an impression that it stays with them the rest of their lives?  It happened to me.  When I was young, around the age or 10 or 11 there was a mini-series that played on TBS that was about mountain men, emigrants on the Oregon Trail, cowboys and swindlers.  It was the mini-series "Centennial" based on a book by the same name written by James Michener.

It first ran in 1978-79 on NBC when mini-series were all the rage.  Shogun, Roots and other mini-series had run successfully but Centennial was different.  It was thirteen episodes that spanned the beginning of the west and covering more than 200 years worth of history to what would be the present day (back then) fictitious town of Centennial, Colorado.

I first watched it in a subsequent run on TBS and was immediately hooked.  Stories about the old west was already something I was interested in because I had already spent time in the Rocky Mountain west, and the story tied in neatly with the love I had started for the mountains.  I had seen the Platte River that Pasquinel struggled so mightily to get his canoe to navigate.  I had seen "Ft. John" in the series in real life, as Bent's Old Fort in southeast Colorado.  I had seen the cliffs of western Nebraska and the names of the real life emigrants, and could immediately relate to Levi Zendt and his travels.  As a boy this was as real as it could get for me.  I soaked it up, and many other westerns that told a similar story, and I read the book as well.  To this day it's one of the few novels I have read from start to finish.

It had a deep impact on how I saw the world.  It had a strong message that Native Americans were not treated fairly by the U.S. Government.  It had a strong message that the land was to be taken care of and not used up carelessly.  It had a deep tie to history, even though it was fiction.  You could see it in the characters, whether it was Maxwell Mercy breaking himself for the Indians while wearing an Army uniform, or in Alexander McKeag and his respect for the land.  Honesty and respect trumped greed, corruption and carelessness.  How could that not make an impact on a young kid?

I've watched the series many, many times over my adult life.  The story is great and each time I watch it, it's like visiting old friends.  I think it's a major reason why I prefer the wide open spaces to the big city, and can see a sea of beauty on the prairie where others might only see a lot of grass.  It had a lot to do why I'd rather have an untouched land vs having fences and wind turbines everywhere.  It helped develop the respect I have for Native Americans and their story, and has a hand in me seeing the West as it should be seen.

It's about 35 years old now.  Many of the actors have passed on, and it would look very dated to someone who is just now watching it.  But the story remains the same, and the message also carries on.  "The Earth isn't something you take from without ever thinking of giving back.  The Earth is something you protect everyday of the year, a river is something you defend every inch of it's course."  What a great message.