With the new year there was the new hope of 2020 being the year everything was to come together and be in focus.
What a crock of crap that turned out to be. As the new year began, China gave the world the Wuhan Flu. Complain all you want but it is the Wuhan Flu, just like forest fires are named after the area they started in and tornadoes where they formed near. Remember the Happy Tornado? Happy Texas!!!
So with what a lot of chasers where calling the WuTang Flu at ChaserCon turned into a major dumpster fire and the world went into lock down. Toilet paper become worth its weight in gold, food started to get scarce as farmers started loosing all their clients since the entertainment industry and hospitality industry shut down so crops rotted and were plowed under as live stock was killed and burred… Like I said, Dumpster Fire… News of almost 100,000 people in the USA have died of Covid 19 or as I like to call it “The Rona” things started to look like it was getting better, the weather was almost perfect for those that like nice weather. Even the sky was a deeper blue most days as there was a lack of air traffic.
Just as we thought we could come out of the bunker, now it was Asian Murder Hornets… But that lasted about a week in the news.
So, after months of lock down and then news of Murder Hornets, The Rona which was played out to be as what some called The New Ebola but turned out it sucked but not anywhere near as bad as Ebola. With everyone going a little insane and wanting to get out and try to get back to life as normal, my home town of Minneapolis says “Hold My Beer”…
I did not go and cover the protests since I knew it would turn into a riot after dark, I avoided that scene. As my friend Chris who is a photojournalist at a local news station put it, would your daughter want you going to cover that story or stay home where it was safe? He said his kids where worried about him covering the story. Fast forward a few days later and now we get news stories about several journalists being shot at by the police and even arrested on live national TV.
Yeah, Cluster Fuck is a term that is pretty much describes it. I do know of some chasers that did go and cover the looting and riots and even one that covered the people setting the police station getting set on fire. All I can say is good luck with the FBI Investigation over when they come knocking and asking questions.
Over all this spring chase season has been dead. There have been very few tornadoes and the Storm Prediction Center only issued a record 10 tornado watches in the Month of May. So I did not get out more then a couple of times and those days where pretty much busts.
Now fast forward to June, thing are starting to pick up but the still far below normal. This mean’s that while I’m not chasing any tornadoes, I have been able to play around with side projects and stuff that I have been wanting to do for years. Back in 2014 I had a Canon 70D customized to remove the sensor filter. Thus it made the camera into a Full Spectrum camera that would not filter out any Ultra-Violet or Infra-Red light.
Using custom lens filters for IR and UV light, I was now able to capture images of a very unique area. Earlier this week I finally dusted off the customized camera and got back out to play with it in the lightning.
Here is one of the daylight lightning images in the IR spectrum from near Cosmos, MN.
Remember, this is not a black and white image. The camera sensor was only able to see the Infra Red light wave lengths.
I know it has been a while since I updated the site and the blog, damn social or Anti Social media keeps getting in the way. I will get some of the past blogs that where never finished up published this weekend. Now it is time to tend the garden and get everything finished planting and watered.