Latest / The Nerdy Photographer Podcast / 161 - Dust, Downbursts, and Drama: Storm Chasing in the American Southwest

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161 - Dust, Downbursts, and Drama: Storm Chasing in the American Southwest · The Nerdy Photographer Podcast

• 0:04
  Casey Fatchett: A dropping out of orbit bring our altitude down
• 0:07
  at a rate of 100 meters per second. Oh, hello. Welcome to
• 0:11
  the nerdy photographer podcast. I'm your host, Casey Fatchett.
• 0:14
  In addition to providing informative and entertaining
• 0:16
  photography related content, I also go on adventures with the
• 0:19
  crew of the starship Fibonacci. Right now, the crew and I are
• 0:23
  about to document a massive storm on a gas giant orbiting
• 0:26
  the star designated f4, RT, six, seven. The storm is five times
• 0:32
  the size of planet Earth, and it appears to be growing. Fib let's
• 0:36
  try to keep it as steady as possible. My hull is going to
• 0:41
  need to buffing after this, I don't want to know about what
• 0:45
  you do on your personal time. Speaking of big storms, in this
• 0:49
  episode, I'm talking with a return guest landscape and
• 0:51
  nature photographer Jake case, who comes back to us to talk
• 0:54
  about monsoon season in the American Southwest, and the ins
• 0:58
  and outs of storm chasing wind speeds approaching 500
• 1:03
  kilometers per hour. Buckle up everybody. It's going to be a
• 1:08
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  Notes and free up time for what you love by letting AI handle
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  the heavy lifting so you can focus on capturing moments and
• 4:01
  not sorting through them. Hello and welcome to the nerdy
• 4:07
  photographer podcast. I'm your host, Casey Fatchett, and on
• 4:11
  this episode, we have our friend Jay case back with us. Jake,
• 4:15
  welcome,
• 4:17
  Jake Case: Hey. Thanks for having me back, Casey,
• 4:20
  Casey Fatchett: you're always welcome. For those who don't
• 4:22
  know, Jake is a landscape photographer in Arizona, but
• 4:26
  he's recently taken on a new aspect of photography before we
• 4:31
  get into that, though, we're gonna roll the dice breaker, and
• 4:34
  it's 17 and that means who is your if you could choose one
• 4:40
  fictional character to be friends with. Who would it be?
• 4:45
  Jake Case: Oh, my God, you're putting me on the spot right off
• 4:48
  the bat, as usual. Ah, man, I'm like, kind of going blank here.
• 4:57
  I. How about, uh, Harry Potter,
• 5:02
  Casey Fatchett: good friend to have. He takes care of his
• 5:05
  friends for the most part.
• 5:08
  Jake Case: My daughter's been super into Harry Potter for a
• 5:10
  while, so that was like a first one that came to mind for sure.
• 5:17
  Good choice. Good choice. Yeah, so nice to have somebody that's
• 5:22
  brave and knows magic.
• 5:23
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, magic is good and he's rich. Yeah, true.
• 5:28
  You have recently gotten into storm chasing, as is
• 5:36
  specifically like the Arizona monsoon season for those people
• 5:41
  who aren't familiar, what exactly is the Arizona monsoon
• 5:46
  season? How does this type of storm chasing differ from, say,
• 5:50
  like what they've probably seen on television, like tornado
• 5:54
  chasing that most people see from, like the Great Plains or
• 5:57
  Texas and stuff like that.
• 6:00
  Jake Case: Yeah, for sure. So monsoon season out here that
• 6:07
  runs June through September, and we don't really get a lot of
• 6:16
  tornadoes out here. We don't get a lot of the super cells. And
• 6:20
  you know, from a photography perspective, out on the planes,
• 6:26
  like there's, you can go storm chasing and try to get close to
• 6:31
  a tornado, you know, try to photograph the tornado. I mean,
• 6:35
  some of the people that are trying to get real close to the
• 6:37
  tornadoes, they're not necessarily trying to make like,
• 6:41
  Fine Art photos, right? You know, they're just, sometimes
• 6:44
  it's like they're live streaming on YouTube or, you know, you
• 6:49
  know what it's it's a little different thing than fine art
• 6:52
  photographers. Yeah, there's other folks out on the that go
• 6:55
  and try to get like the mothership super, super sell, is
• 7:02
  what they you know, what they call it. And so here in Arizona,
• 7:06
  because we don't, we get a little bit of that kind of here
• 7:10
  in the end of September. But for the most part, our storms are
• 7:17
  lightning producers, and they produce torrential downpours,
• 7:24
  kind of like, you know, like the old cartoons where, I think it
• 7:29
  was like, in in Charlie Brown, like one of the characters has a
• 7:34
  rain cloud following him, Yes, and it's just raining on him,
• 7:37
  but there's, Like, no rain anywhere else. But, you know,
• 7:41
  that's, that's kind of what our storms do. So you can get these,
• 7:45
  you know, these really cool angles where there could be blue
• 7:48
  sky, and then there could be a thunderhead, and there's just
• 7:52
  like a dam for dropping out of the, out of the bottom of it.
• 7:57
  And then, then we also have the dust storms, which are? We call
• 8:02
  them haboobs. It's a specific type of dust storm where the
• 8:06
  winds kick dust up 1000s of feet into the air, and then it's like
• 8:12
  a wall of dust moving at pretty high speed across the desert. If
• 8:19
  those are the types of things we're kind of going after out
• 8:21
  here.
• 8:22
  Casey Fatchett: If you ever seen the movie The Mummy like that
• 8:25
  sort of, like the wall of dust and sand, that type of, yeah,
• 8:31
  that type of look. I saw your photos from what he captured
• 8:34
  earlier this year, just crazy. So what inspired that one?
• 8:39
  Jake Case: And that was, like, the hobby of the decade.
• 8:44
  Casey Fatchett: What inspired you to shift from, like, from, I
• 8:47
  mean, I know you're still doing landscape photography, but like
• 8:51
  to incorporate this, the more unpredictable world of storm
• 8:56
  chasing, into your photography.
• 8:59
  Jake Case: I mean, honestly, it was because I think the last
• 9:04
  time I was on, on the pod here with you, I talked a little bit
• 9:09
  about how I took, like, a hiatus from photography for almost six
• 9:15
  years. And you know, during that time I was seeing a lot of well,
• 9:21
  are the kind of the goat of modern monsoon storm chasing his
• 9:28
  name's Mike obinsky. And, you know, I've been following him
• 9:33
  for for like 15 years him, and I actually probably picked the
• 9:38
  camera around the same time and so, so I was seeing like his,
• 9:43
  you know, his photography and his time lapse films that he was
• 9:49
  making of the storms. And, you know, when I picked back up the
• 9:53
  camera, that was, you know, one of the things where I was like,
• 9:57
  I've never photographed a hall. Food, and I want to do that that
• 10:05
  was, you know, the kind of the inspiration and, and also, like
• 10:13
  early, early on, when I started landscape photography, I got
• 10:18
  this, this photo of lightning bolts over this really unique
• 10:25
  desert waterfall. It's called Grand falls, aka chocolate
• 10:29
  falls, aka Niagara of the desert. And it basically, when
• 10:33
  it runs, it doesn't run all the time. It's only when there's a
• 10:35
  bunch of water coming from upstream, and it looks like the
• 10:40
  chocolate river from Will he wants his chocolate factory
• 10:44
  that's so charged with dirt and sand from the desert. And so it
• 10:49
  was like 2010 and I somehow knew enough of how to use my camera.
• 10:54
  I ended up at this waterfall to shoot sunset, and then this
• 10:59
  monsoon storm came kind of after, after the sun went down,
• 11:04
  and was dropping lightning bolts, and I got, like, a long
• 11:06
  exposure, and it's, you know, it was, like a really rare photo
• 11:14
  I've only seen, I don't, I think I've only seen one other, like,
• 11:22
  set of photos from that spot with lightning there, and then
• 11:26
  it's also, it's now close to the public, like, can't even go
• 11:29
  there for like, the last four years. So, so, you know, when I
• 11:34
  got that photo, it was almost like I wasn't really motivated
• 11:39
  to shoot lightning, because I got like, a holy grail
• 11:43
  lightning. But when I picked the camera back up, like I was
• 11:50
  looking through all my old photos, and I was like, Oh, I
• 11:53
  love shooting lightning, but I only have, like, you know that
• 11:57
  photo, and like, one other lightning photo that I ever did.
• 12:01
  Like, there's so much more I could do with it. So anyway,
• 12:05
  that's like, that was kind of like the inspiration
• 12:08
  Casey Fatchett: you got those that that the great shot. I
• 12:14
  don't know if I need to add anything to this just yet,
• 12:16
  maybe, maybe later on, I can see that happen. So yeah, this is a
• 12:22
  totally different thing, not totally different meaning. But
• 12:25
  like, is very different than being a landscape photographer.
• 12:30
  What sort of I mean, how's the learning curve and like? What
• 12:35
  are the challenges that you've come up against going like, now
• 12:40
  you're chasing storms. You're not like, it's very different
• 12:43
  from like, shooting a regular landscape, where you're kind of
• 12:46
  like, okay, I know I've got to be here, kind of like, at x
• 12:50
  time, and hopefully, you know whatever cloud cover is not like
• 12:57
  predicting. You know whether or not you're going to get a storm,
• 12:59
  whether you're going to get lightning, whether you're gonna
• 13:02
  get a haboob, those sorts of things, it seems like a vastly
• 13:06
  different preparation process.
• 13:10
  Jake Case: Yeah, for sure. So I mean, thinking back to when I
• 13:12
  was just starting to learn photography and really into
• 13:16
  landscape photography, I mean, there was the learning curve of,
• 13:22
  you know, just the kind of the basics of photography, like
• 13:26
  dialing in composition and focus and exposing property, and then,
• 13:34
  you know, finding photogenic locations. And on any given day
• 13:39
  here in Arizona, like you could go to, you could go anywhere in
• 13:43
  the state, basically, and and find a great landscape photo to
• 13:49
  shoot. The hard part about storm chasing is being like at the
• 13:54
  right place, at the right time, and depending on what you want
• 13:59
  to get. I mean, it's, I mean, it could end up being like a one
• 14:05
  square mile worth of area that you want to get to, and then
• 14:10
  finding a spot within that area where you can get to safely, you
• 14:17
  can get the camera set up with, you know, like, if you don't
• 14:22
  want to have power lines in your photo, like, you know, there's
• 14:26
  just a place is going to have a there's just all these
• 14:30
  different, different factors that come into play. And for me,
• 14:36
  it's been really difficult, like not learning the meteorology
• 14:43
  necessarily, but like, like understanding how deep I need to
• 14:52
  go in and into learning meteorology to actually be able
• 14:55
  to, like, have a have a like, predict or have a feel. Of where
• 15:00
  to go, to get really close right to the storms,
• 15:04
  Casey Fatchett: to have a better idea of where you should
• 15:06
  actually be going. So that you don't mean this is a just like
• 15:11
  with anything in photography, you're learning what you need to
• 15:14
  know, so you don't waste your time on things that you know
• 15:19
  aren't going to work.
• 15:22
  Jake Case: Yeah, and my understanding is because I
• 15:27
  haven't chased the the tornadoes and the super cells out on the
• 15:31
  planes, but my understanding is from hearing what some veteran
• 15:36
  storm chasers have said publicly the Arizona monsoon is a lot
• 15:44
  harder to chase than the super cells out on the Great Plains.
• 15:49
  It just felt way more unpredictable, you know, way
• 15:55
  more factors to consider.
• 15:59
  Casey Fatchett: So why is that
• 16:01
  Jake Case: it can be, it can be pretty it can be pretty
• 16:04
  frustrating.
• 16:06
  Casey Fatchett: Why is it so, so much more unpredictable then,
• 16:11
  Jake Case: I mean, it gets into the into the meteorology, but,
• 16:17
  you know, basically the, well, like, out on the planes, the
• 16:24
  super cells are moving from west to east, and they're always
• 16:28
  moving that direction. And so there's kind of like, you know,
• 16:39
  all these different you like the data you can look at and the
• 16:45
  weather models, it's, you know, pretty consistent of how to
• 16:50
  predict generally, where and when a supercell is going to pop
• 16:53
  up. And, you know, and you might have multiple super cells that
• 16:59
  you could see or could potentially happen. And so it's,
• 17:03
  you know, there's choices to make and and there's some amount
• 17:07
  of unpredictability, but, but here in Arizona, it's, you know,
• 17:15
  the the winds are shifting in a lot of different directions.
• 17:21
  Actually the name monsoon. It's an Arabic word. It means
• 17:24
  seasonal shift in winds. And so it basically, normally, most of
• 17:31
  the our winds blow from the southwest and bring storms in
• 17:36
  off the Pacific in the in in June and early July, a high
• 17:43
  pressure system that's normally down in Mexico moves up and it
• 17:47
  sits over, usually, kind of Colorado, the four corners,
• 17:52
  Colorado, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico border, and So it causes
• 18:00
  the winds to blow from the south generally, and bring moisture up
• 18:05
  from the Gulf California, Gulf of Mexico, tropical the tropics,
• 18:11
  wet areas of Mexico, and it brings this moisture up. But
• 18:15
  that high pressure can move different directions. So if it
• 18:18
  sits over Las Vegas, it it can bring can bring storms in from
• 18:23
  different directions, but these winds are kind of like swirling
• 18:28
  different different ways and and then sometimes the storms spark
• 18:35
  off from other storms, where they have these outflow winds
• 18:38
  that blow After a after a storm, is kind of dying out. It sends
• 18:44
  out flow winds, and those carry moisture, and that if they
• 18:48
  collide with other outflow winds, you can spark off new
• 18:51
  storms. But sometimes outflow winds don't happen, like you
• 18:55
  think they're going to happen, or they go a slightly different
• 18:59
  direction, and there's just, like, there's like, all these
• 19:02
  different factors that that, I mean, it's crazy out there when
• 19:06
  it's most of the time I'm driving around, looking at the
• 19:09
  weather radar and saying, I have no idea what's going to happen.
• 19:14
  I have no idea what I'm doing. I just, I just, I just hope that a
• 19:18
  storm pops up near where, where I am, or where I'm going to be
• 19:23
  in an hour, we'll see what happens.
• 19:25
  Casey Fatchett: Did you have a moment when you started doing
• 19:28
  this, like where you kind of realized just how unpredictable
• 19:32
  it was?
• 19:35
  Jake Case: Well, yeah, and there was, yeah, last summer. Last
• 19:41
  summer was my first summer of intentionally, like storm
• 19:44
  chasing. And there was, there was this one day where my my
• 19:54
  friend Chris, Chris Henry, he lives here in the. Nights. And
• 20:00
  he was like, I want to go storm chase them with you. And I was
• 20:03
  like, All right, we're gonna there's storms up to the north.
• 20:06
  We can see the clouds, like, let's head that way. So we
• 20:09
  drive, you know, an hour, and I can see some lightning up in the
• 20:14
  clouds. And I'm like, All right, we're getting close to them. And
• 20:16
  then they, you know, started moving away from us and the road
• 20:22
  network. The roads were all windy, and basically, the storms
• 20:26
  just basically ran away from us. We weren't after that point, we
• 20:33
  were weren't within 50 miles of the storms for the rest of the
• 20:36
  day. See, you know it was, it was kind of defeating too,
• 20:41
  because it was like I had this person that was like, I want to
• 20:44
  come storm chasing with you. And you know that that moment I
• 20:48
  realized that I really had no idea what I was doing, see, I
• 20:52
  think this is if I would have known a little bit a little bit
• 20:58
  more about, maybe not even known, but thought a little bit
• 21:02
  more critically about how the storms behave most of the time
• 21:08
  they they they build up during the like the midday over the
• 21:15
  mountains, and then in the Late afternoon, they start rolling
• 21:21
  off the mountains out into the like the open desert. And I knew
• 21:27
  that, but I got, you know, like tunnel vision, like there's
• 21:31
  those storms drive toward the storms, and they, you know,
• 21:34
  they, you know, they did, generally what they do. And if I
• 21:38
  would have thought that through, and his suggestion that day was,
• 21:42
  oh, let's go to this town called Wickenburg. And if we would have
• 21:45
  gone to Wickenburg like you suggested, we would have had the
• 21:48
  storms roll right over. But I was like, no drive towards the
• 21:51
  storm. And yeah, that was a that was an eye opening day. But get
• 21:56
  excited. I definitely after that day, I did. I did some work to
• 22:00
  better prepare myself to not completely drop the bag like
• 22:06
  that.
• 22:08
  Casey Fatchett: But what you're saying kind of like makes me
• 22:11
  realize, like we were talking about earlier, how this would be
• 22:14
  different from, like the planes. You don't have to worry about
• 22:19
  the mountains right. As far as driving, anybody who's driven
• 22:24
  through the Great Plains knows that you don't have, you're not
• 22:26
  generally running up against any sort of natural obstacles that,
• 22:33
  like the there's a was, as far as like, roads you're not
• 22:38
  driving, like, Oh, here's a valley or a, you know, buttes,
• 22:43
  or whatever that you're going to have to circumnavigate before
• 22:46
  you can get to exposition. And you, you're pretty much can
• 22:50
  drive straight you're in, and then turn onto another road
• 22:54
  that's going to go straight, right?
• 22:57
  Jake Case: Yeah, yeah. Road network is a big part of storm
• 23:00
  chasing. And there's, you know, most of the Great Plains has an
• 23:04
  excellent road network where, if there's a storm, you can get,
• 23:09
  you know, depending on how close to the storm you're trying to
• 23:12
  get, if you're trying to get right next to it, to be up close
• 23:15
  and personal with a tornado, like, usually, you can do that.
• 23:19
  And if you're somebody that wants to get, like the
• 23:22
  mothership Supercell, usually you're further back. Usually
• 23:27
  you're shooting wide and the, you know, miles away. And you
• 23:31
  want to be miles away to be able to see that that form and that
• 23:35
  structure. And in that case, you can, you know, the planes. You
• 23:39
  really have a lot of leeway where you can go to get to and
• 23:42
  get the different angles, but yeah, here in most areas, our
• 23:46
  road network is not conducive to doing the things like you could
• 23:55
  on the planes. And there was, there was another day last
• 23:59
  summer where I'd made, you know, having understood that I had no
• 24:05
  idea what I was doing, I reached out to a local storm chaser and
• 24:11
  said, Hey, like, do you want to go chase sometime? And he was
• 24:14
  like, Yeah, let's do it. And so he was like, and this guy, I
• 24:19
  mean, I think he's a savant, actually. His name is John
• 24:23
  serwin. He was, he was like, Oh yeah, there's going to be a
• 24:27
  haboob. It's going to roll off these mountains. We're going to
• 24:30
  go to Wickenburg, meet in Wickenburg, and then we're going
• 24:34
  to, like, get on this road and stay ahead of the Habu. And the
• 24:40
  models were showing the hobby was going to travel toward the
• 24:44
  Southwest, and so I'm driving out to Wickenburg on the day,
• 24:49
  and I text John, and I'm like, I'm on my way. And he's like,
• 24:54
  I'm not on my way because I ran over a nail and I'm at tire
• 24:59
  shop. Do. My tire patch. And then I was like, All right,
• 25:03
  well, he told me the plan, so I'm going to try to do it. So.
• 25:07
  So first of all, I drove down a dirt road, which is like,
• 25:12
  usually not what you want to do, because these things move so
• 25:17
  fast if you put yourself in a position where you can't get on
• 25:20
  the highway and and punch it. You can, you can, you can just
• 25:26
  screw yourself over and not being in the right position. And
• 25:29
  that's what I did. The wind coming out of the storms that
• 25:35
  were going to kick off the Habu. It ran right over. I got hit
• 25:39
  with my tail, and then it started raining, and then I was
• 25:43
  trying to get up to the highway, you know, driving down this dirt
• 25:47
  road, and at that point, I had already lost, like the the wind
• 25:53
  front was already in front of me, and, you know, I wasn't
• 25:59
  going to be able to, I was probably not going to be able to
• 26:02
  to catch it, because I was down on that dirt road. Also it went
• 26:07
  south instead of Southwest, and there was no road heading view
• 26:11
  south, you know. And so it showed like the unpredictability
• 26:18
  of it, and it also showed me, like, the decision making. Like,
• 26:23
  I, you know, even if I hadn't gone that down that dirt road, I
• 26:27
  might have gotten run over and not been able to catch it, but
• 26:31
  it certainly didn't help.
• 26:34
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, I think that what you're like, this gets
• 26:37
  to something making connections with other types of photography
• 26:41
  here, but like, the understanding of the
• 26:43
  understanding of the weather and how it can be unpredictable, but
• 26:48
  putting yourself in the best position is similar to, like,
• 26:52
  what I've talked to, like, street photographers who like,
• 26:55
  oh, they study like, how light's gonna hit certain buildings when
• 26:58
  they're gonna get, like, reflections off of buildings
• 27:01
  from the sun, so that it's a light this area, or whatever,
• 27:04
  like, and you're obviously going to deal with, Oh, if it's a
• 27:07
  cloudy day or, like, the weather changes, it's going to change,
• 27:10
  like, exactly what you're doing, but then knowing what to do,
• 27:13
  where to go when the weather shifts. Like, we talked to Phil
• 27:18
  Penman A while back, and he talked about how he's like,
• 27:22
  Okay, if it's a sunny day, this is where I'm going to go this
• 27:26
  time of year if I want this type of shot. But if it rains, I'm
• 27:29
  going to go to this, these intersections in Manhattan,
• 27:32
  because that's where the steam vents are. So I get great steam
• 27:39
  shots of like people walking down the street. So it's like
• 27:41
  the knowing the all of the permutations and how to put
• 27:46
  yourself in a place to get good photos, depending on what it's
• 27:53
  unpredictable. But like knowing how, when things are moving,
• 27:57
  like the you know where you can go to, like, put yourself in the
• 28:00
  best position. So I'm, like, curious, like, how often do you,
• 28:03
  like, how much time do you have to set up when you like, Okay,
• 28:06
  I'm here. I'm gonna get I'm getting out of the car, I'm
• 28:09
  setting up my gear to take a shot. Like, how much, generally,
• 28:13
  like, how much time do you have to, like, actually, like, set up
• 28:16
  to get a photo.
• 28:17
  Jake Case: You know, it's so it's so variable. I mean,
• 28:21
  sometimes, you know you have, I mean, if you get, if you get to
• 28:26
  the spot, right when the storms rolling in, like you might have,
• 28:29
  like, a couple minutes or something. And it depends on, it
• 28:37
  depends on what kind of storm it is, too, and it depends on the
• 28:42
  safety precautions that you want to live by when it comes to
• 28:46
  lightning. You know, I know there's, I know storm chasers
• 28:49
  that there'll be lightning overhead and all sorts of
• 28:52
  dangerous stuff, and they'll be standing out in it, and, you
• 28:55
  know, and all that. And obviously that's risky. And so
• 29:01
  usually when, when Lightning's doing that, it's like, I try to
• 29:04
  get, like, open up the hatch of my car, set up the tripod under
• 29:10
  the hatch, and I sit in the car, like, like, crisscross
• 29:14
  applesauce, yeah, like, on the bed of ISV, but, yeah, and when,
• 29:20
  but if it's a haboob like, as long as you're you have a
• 29:25
  highway next to you that you can travel in the same direction of
• 29:31
  the haboob like you can, you know, can have the haboob roll
• 29:36
  up within 50 feet of you or something, and then grab the
• 29:41
  camera and throw it in the car, and then speed off down the
• 29:44
  highway, down to the next spot. So, so you know it's, it's
• 29:51
  really variable, and you know that there's something to trying
• 29:55
  to get get there early. You. And fortunately, a lot of times when
• 30:03
  I've been chasing this summer, I have flexibility on my time.
• 30:09
  Most people don't have that. Like, you know, most people were
• 30:13
  nine to five, and then, okay, then you get off work and maybe
• 30:17
  you can go chase a storm, right? And, you know, maybe the storm
• 30:21
  you really wanted to chase, you needed to be up the spot at
• 30:24
  three o'clock. Well, you had to work till five. So, you know,
• 30:27
  what are you going to do? But I've been that's something last
• 30:30
  summer where I was always getting the stuff late and
• 30:34
  trying to play catch up, you know? And it would be like,
• 30:39
  Okay, there's, oh, I there's the storm. I can see the flashes of
• 30:43
  lightning. I can look on the radar and see where it is. Okay,
• 30:46
  it's a 45 minute drive. Well, I'm going to punch it up there.
• 30:50
  And then then you pull up, and there's like, you know, one last
• 30:54
  lightning bolt, you know, and while you're driving, and you're
• 30:58
  like, alright, I made it. And then you get the camera out, and
• 31:01
  you set up, and it's like the storm dies, and you you were too
• 31:05
  delayed. And I've done that like multiple times. I finally
• 31:09
  learned my lesson on that where, if there's a storm actively
• 31:11
  going and I'm 45 minutes or more away, that I try to figure out a
• 31:16
  different plan, because it just, it just doesn't, it just doesn't
• 31:21
  work like that
• 31:22
  Casey Fatchett: You're probably not going to catch it,
• 31:25
  Jake Case: yeah, so, so it's, you know, part of it is planning
• 31:28
  like and, and you don't, you know, you can't really plan a
• 31:34
  storm Chase days ahead, like you can look at what's probably
• 31:38
  going to happen and be like, Oh, this is probably going to be
• 31:41
  really good day three days from now, but even then the day
• 31:45
  before, sometimes the atmosphere will just extend more energy
• 31:54
  than What the weather models predicted and the meteorologist
• 32:01
  predicted. And then the day after that, usually it's like,
• 32:05
  the energy has been used up and the storms aren't going to be
• 32:09
  good the next day. So you can even look at the models and be
• 32:12
  like, okay, Tuesday looks okay, but Wednesday looks like the
• 32:16
  day. And then you could like, Tuesday. You like, I'm sitting
• 32:19
  home, whatever. And then on social media, you see all the
• 32:22
  other storm cheese has got incredible, crazy storms. And
• 32:25
  then the next day you go out and it's, you know, it's ho hum. So
• 32:30
  there's, there's just, just all these different factors. So when
• 32:34
  it comes down to it, it's almost like the the morning of is like,
• 32:37
  when you really, like, have to figure out what you think is
• 32:41
  going to happen, and figuring out when it's probably going to
• 32:46
  happen, where to get to, and then looking at your schedule
• 32:50
  and saying, like, this is what I have to do today. Like, I can't
• 32:55
  get to this spot at this time. I have to pick something else,
• 32:59
  right?
• 33:01
  Casey Fatchett: So, I mean, curious, how do you like, we
• 33:05
  talked about mental health in our last discussion, and just,
• 33:11
  how do you mentally and emotionally cope with, like a
• 33:14
  bust when you like, put in all this effort and it doesn't pay
• 33:18
  off.
• 33:21
  Jake Case: I mean, the like, the biggest thing for me is, like,
• 33:26
  every time I go out, I try to get a photo, like, at least one
• 33:33
  photo that I'm proud of. And that doesn't mean it has to be a
• 33:39
  storm photo, right? I and a lot of these storm chasing missions
• 33:47
  out in the desert, I'm ending up in areas where it's not, you
• 33:54
  know, it's, it's desert, it's, it's, it's kind of dried out in
• 33:58
  the summer, we have these thunderstorms, but they're so
• 34:01
  isolated. It's not like you're most of the time you're not
• 34:04
  driving out in the desert, and it's green and wildflowers, like
• 34:07
  it is in the spring, usually, most of these stretches of
• 34:11
  desert haven't seen rain in three months, so everything's
• 34:13
  Brown. And I'll end up these places by the side of the road
• 34:18
  where there's, you know, there's like, junk sitting around, you
• 34:24
  know. So sometimes I'm shooting like, this dystopian, like a
• 34:28
  brown landscape with, like, you know, junk, you know. So, so
• 34:34
  then I'll, you know, if I'm sitting around waiting for a
• 34:36
  storm, I'll be like, well, instead of, like, getting on my
• 34:41
  phone and looking at Instagram or threads, like, I'll, like,
• 34:45
  I'll take the camera and I'll go, like, try to be creative and
• 34:48
  shoot what's around me, and then, and then, if the storm
• 34:54
  comes in at the bus, well, like, I shot something, right?
• 34:58
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, you get you gotta you're. Something out
• 35:00
  of it. It's not just, like a all or nothing,
• 35:04
  Jake Case: yeah, and there's and, and, you know, I've shot
• 35:09
  like, all sorts of different things while, while swarm
• 35:12
  chasing and, and even, like that day where John sernlin got the
• 35:18
  flat tire and, and I messed up the haboob Chase, kind of like,
• 35:22
  I got some awesome photos that day. Like I shot. I found this
• 35:27
  abandoned gas station. It was built in the 1930s and it was
• 35:32
  basically like the roof was gone. It was just like the walls
• 35:35
  and the bones of it, and there's like, there's like a little
• 35:39
  graffiti in it. But it was, like, interesting light. And so,
• 35:44
  like, you know, I was, like, driving down the highway light.
• 35:49
  I don't even know where to go to, like, try to catch a storm.
• 35:52
  And it was all dusty because I was eating the dust of the blue,
• 35:55
  like I was at the back end of it. So I saw that, and I was
• 35:57
  like, Well, I'm going to go shoot that, because that's
• 36:00
  awesome, and, you know, and then, and I was driving, like,
• 36:06
  later on down the road, I was basically like, alright, well,
• 36:10
  like, I'm going to, I'm just going to head home, because I
• 36:13
  don't know where to go for storms. And I'm driving down the
• 36:19
  highway, and I look over and there's this cloud, and the sun
• 36:23
  was behind it, and it had the CREP, secular, I don't know how
• 36:26
  to pronounce that word, perhaps healer, like the god rays,
• 36:34
  Casey Fatchett: God lights. That's all like,
• 36:37
  Jake Case: yeah, they're Yeah. Like, this cloud, like there are
• 36:41
  rays coming out of, like, every single side of the cloud, and
• 36:45
  then there's these mountains out in the distance. And it was like
• 36:48
  dusty, so it's like, kind of like atmospheric and and I
• 36:52
  pulled up and there's like a field. There was an agricultural
• 36:55
  area, believe it or not, in Arizona, we have agriculture. It
• 37:00
  was like a field with mountains, and then this crazy light ray
• 37:04
  cloud thing. And I was, like, one of the best photos I got all
• 37:08
  summer. And from, like a from like a extreme weather
• 37:13
  perspective, it was a bust of a day. But other stuff, I was
• 37:20
  pretty happy. I was still pretty happy with what I got so and in
• 37:25
  the day, where me and Chris were behind the storm, 30 to 50 miles
• 37:30
  all day, like we we shot sunset out of viewpoint, and I got
• 37:35
  like, a really cool shot that day, where it's like layers of
• 37:39
  distant mountains and then a highway coming up, and there's
• 37:44
  like a car on the highway, like leading lines and, you know,
• 37:48
  like, so I have all these memories, like, okay, that day
• 37:51
  was a bus on the storm chasing part of it, but I came back,
• 37:59
  And I also look at it too, like, I'm not like, I do storm
• 38:04
  chasing, but I'm not like, that's not the only thing I do.
• 38:08
  So I like being able to look at my portfolio from, like, the
• 38:11
  monsoon season, and it's, you know, instead of like, like, if
• 38:17
  I mean, this summer, maybe I got like, five lightning photos that
• 38:23
  I like, and then five Habu photos that I like. And then
• 38:28
  that's all I got. You know, I I wouldn't be happy with my
• 38:33
  summer, but I got like, all this other stuff right here, and I
• 38:37
  made some more diversified where I'm not looking at like, like
• 38:40
  like, my Instagram feed, and it's like, lightning, lightning,
• 38:44
  havoc, lightning, lightning. It's like, like, I have that
• 38:48
  stuff in there, but then I have, like, all these other different
• 38:51
  elements that are also part of, you know, being in Arizona
• 38:55
  during the monsoon.
• 38:56
  Casey Fatchett: It's all part of the Arizona experience,
• 38:59
  Jake Case: yeah, for sure. So that's so doing that stuff is
• 39:03
  like, one way that I that I cope with, like, because it can be,
• 39:09
  it can be frustrating and devastating when, like, there's
• 39:13
  some crazy storm going on and you're not on it for whatever
• 39:20
  reason, when you go on social media and you see, you know, all
• 39:23
  these photos of these great storms. So another thing is, I
• 39:27
  really try to stay in the mindset of every time I go out,
• 39:31
  I'm learning, and usually if I'm making mistakes, I'm learning
• 39:38
  more than if I didn't make a mistake, or at least, you know,
• 39:44
  got got on a great storm, made, you know, as little mistakes as
• 39:49
  possible, and got on a great storm, okay, I got on great
• 39:52
  storm. I got great photos. If I don't, I'm, I'm going to learn
• 39:57
  from that.
• 40:00
  Casey Fatchett: I. Now I think that a lot of people look at
• 40:03
  like storm chasing as kind of like a solo endeavor, but you've
• 40:07
  already mentioned that you found some community. How did you
• 40:12
  connect with other Arizona storm chasers? And how does that
• 40:19
  having that network of people, you know, what does that mean to
• 40:22
  you as a photographer, right?
• 40:25
  Jake Case: Yeah. I mean, because I've operated as a, you know,
• 40:31
  like, doing photography for 15 years, you know, before I got
• 40:39
  like, into like, Okay, I'm gonna go storm chasing. I already
• 40:43
  have, like, connections with with storm chasers, you know,
• 40:52
  and so, I mean, one of the, one of the biggest ways I found
• 41:03
  community is a friend of mine who we've been following each
• 41:08
  other's work for a long time. I had sent her like a DM on
• 41:13
  Instagram, like, like, are you storm chasing today? And she's
• 41:18
  like, No, but hey, like, I have this group chat with, like, all
• 41:24
  my storm chasing friends, and we just, you know, like, talk
• 41:29
  about, like, what's going on sometimes, meet up, like,
• 41:32
  whatever you want to, like, I'll add you. It'd be awesome. I was
• 41:36
  like, Sure. And then so, like, almost every single day where
• 41:41
  I'm thinking about chasing storms, or even if I'm not, but
• 41:44
  like, I see cool storms going on, like, like, I'm in there,
• 41:48
  and we're, like, talking about it, and I've ended up meeting up
• 41:52
  with and making, like, in real life, friends with, like,
• 41:55
  couples of people in that group chat. It's a hearing that I
• 42:00
  didn't even that, I didn't even know before, like, you know,
• 42:03
  really, before I got added,
• 42:06
  Casey Fatchett: it seems like something that would, that would
• 42:08
  benefit a lot from having a network and community of people
• 42:12
  to talk to about it. Like, oh, like, especially when you're
• 42:14
  talking about, hey, what do you think it's gonna happen today?
• 42:17
  Like, what, how are we feeling about, like, the models we're
• 42:23
  seeing and, you know, like, where things are gonna break,
• 42:27
  like, having that, that network of people, like, makes it was a
• 42:32
  little easier to like, maybe put yourself in a good position, but
• 42:35
  also, like, you've got that camaraderie among you know that,
• 42:41
  hey, like, oh, it happens. This happens. We've all had busts,
• 42:45
  and we've all had the doesn't always work out every time. Just
• 42:48
  having that sort of network to fall back on, seems like it
• 42:51
  would be very helpful, right?
• 42:55
  Jake Case: And it's and even just being on social media and
• 43:01
  like being supportive of people. For a long time, I followed her.
• 43:08
  Name is Lori Grace Bailey, incredible storm. Chase her down
• 43:13
  so far southern end of Arizona. And, you know, like, I've been a
• 43:18
  fan of her work. And I was like, you know, just like whenever she
• 43:21
  posts something, like, I was posting things like, in support
• 43:26
  of her work, and when she would post stuff not related to
• 43:28
  photography, like, I was also like, you know, like, this kind
• 43:33
  of, like, like, kind of, you know, just like, supportive of,
• 43:40
  you know, Like her or, you know, and other people in the
• 43:43
  community too, but specifically with her, like, you know, she's
• 43:49
  actually kind of mentored me a little bit as a storm chaser. As
• 43:53
  far as like, I can message her and she'll, you know, share,
• 43:59
  share kind of thing tips with me. And you know, you know, it
• 44:04
  was making a connection that way too. So, you know, I've been, I
• 44:09
  think I've been kind of fortunate, but it's also been,
• 44:14
  you know, because I'm, I'm invested in community and
• 44:19
  supporting others, you know, then, like, I get, I get support
• 44:24
  back, you know, it's really cool that way. And then, you know,
• 44:30
  the and then, actually, we also have a an event that happens
• 44:35
  here in Phoenix. There's a local photographer. His name's Andrew
• 44:44
  piileg. He's not a storm chaser. He's actually, he's like he's
• 44:51
  him when it comes to photographing Frank Lloyd Wright
• 44:58
  architecture. Um, like he's the guy at least over the last 15
• 45:05
  years or whatever, but he him and his wife, they own this
• 45:09
  house, like a historic neighborhood in downtown
• 45:11
  Phoenix, and then they converted, like their they had,
• 45:17
  like a laundry room and like some other small room, and they
• 45:20
  basically, like, knocked down a wall and, like, made it a
• 45:25
  gallery space, and then they have their like, backyard set up
• 45:30
  to entertain. And so it's called the Brill studio and gallery,
• 45:36
  and they do a monsoon show, you know, open call to artists and
• 45:45
  and then, if you get accepted, you print your work, put it up.
• 45:49
  And they also do because doing time lapse films is like a big
• 45:55
  part of storm chasing nowadays too. They also, like you can
• 46:00
  submit those. And then they this year, they they did two, because
• 46:06
  it's not a gallery that's like in a business district where
• 46:09
  it's open all the time, right? It's like in their house, yeah.
• 46:13
  So they do kind of like two opening night events and then a
• 46:16
  closing night event A month later. And I actually it was an
• 46:22
  awesome event. I was there all three nights, and I met, like
• 46:32
  multiple people in the community that I'd never met before that
• 46:36
  are now my friends, you know, and also people from, like, from
• 46:47
  the group chat that I'm in, like, they showed up, and there
• 46:51
  was just, like, a big kind of community support. But also,
• 46:54
  like, there was just people, like, from the neighborhood that
• 46:58
  were, like, heard like, oh, there's this like event, like,
• 47:02
  I'm gonna go show up and see what's going on, and then you
• 47:06
  get to, like, share kind of, like, Storm photography with,
• 47:12
  you know, people that aren't necessarily part of the
• 47:14
  community, so storm chasing that are, like, part of the local
• 47:17
  team.
• 47:17
  Casey Fatchett: That's the thing. Like, yeah, I always tell
• 47:19
  people about building community. And they think, oh, you know,
• 47:22
  they don't know anybody who you know. Like, I talked to you
• 47:26
  about photography, or, if I can talk to you about just art, or
• 47:29
  any things are like, you know, there's anything like, you have
• 47:33
  to show up to stuff. There's stuff out there. If you show up,
• 47:38
  you're gonna meet people, and they might not. Those people
• 47:40
  might not be the people that you're never meeting, but like
• 47:43
  that might lead you to something else. It's just, is this showing
• 47:47
  up is so important? Like meeting people in person is a like, I
• 47:53
  have many, I have many internet friends who I value very much I
• 47:58
  care about and value. But also, like when you meet people in
• 48:01
  person, it's just like it solidifies things in a lot of
• 48:07
  ways and grows that connection makes it that much stronger by
• 48:13
  meeting in person, speaking of intense or strong, have you had
• 48:17
  any intense or Dangerous experiences during a chase that
• 48:22
  you want to share. Yeah, sure you don't have to. I'm just
• 48:28
  saying. It just made me. Made me think,
• 48:31
  Jake Case: yeah, yeah. So um, so this summer, we had a huge
• 48:35
  August 25 was the date, and this Habu, I mean, it was big,
• 48:41
  impressive. And also it rolled right into fields, you know,
• 48:46
  there's, there's been other haboos, you know, in the last
• 48:51
  few years that are kind of out, kind of out in the middle of
• 48:57
  nowhere, yeah, and so storm chasers got photos and videos of
• 49:02
  them, and they were online, but it was, you know, probably
• 49:08
  mostly within, like the storm chasing community or the
• 49:13
  photography community, you know, that saw that stuff. But this
• 49:18
  one on August 25 because it rolled into the city, it made
• 49:24
  like international news.
• 49:27
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, the pictures are incredible.
• 49:30
  Jake Case: So I so basically what happened on this day for me
• 49:34
  is I headed down south of Phoenix toward the area where
• 49:38
  the haboob was going to be coming from, and the weather
• 49:42
  models like, fortunately, the haboob basically did what the
• 49:46
  weather models predicted. I was in the right place at the right
• 49:51
  time, but, you know, our Okay, so. This is going to sound
• 49:55
  random, but it has to do with gas prices. Here in Phoenix, our
• 50:00
  gas prices are, you know, like, almost $1 higher than if you get
• 50:04
  gas outside the city. I'm heading down to, like, try to
• 50:08
  catch this hobby, but I'm like, I'm going to get gas when I get
• 50:13
  out, when I get down south. So I'm in Casa Grande, Arizona, and
• 50:18
  I pull up at a gas station that, well, the gas price was still
• 50:22
  high there, and so I got like, a drink and all this stuff. And
• 50:27
  I'm like, Alright, I'm going to go to the next, next gas station
• 50:32
  down the road that I know has cheap Yes. Alright. So I'm
• 50:36
  driving down the interstate, but I know I need to be, like,
• 50:40
  keeping my eye on the horizon for the wall of death, yeah. And
• 50:45
  so I'm driving, like, trying to, like, keep my eyes on the road,
• 50:50
  but look at the sky, and then I see the sign for the gas station
• 50:54
  go by. I missed the exit. I'm like, Alright. Well, alright.
• 50:59
  Well, there's a few miles down. There's another gas station. So
• 51:03
  I'm driving, and I then I see the wall of dust coming over the
• 51:08
  mountains. And I'm like, Oh, crap. So so I like, get down to
• 51:12
  the finally, like, get to a near a gas station, and like, the
• 51:17
  haboob is literally, like within a mile, and it's moving like 60
• 51:22
  miles per hour or something like that. So it's like it's coming
• 51:26
  in fast. So I find this little field next to the gas station.
• 51:31
  I'm like, taking some pictures and another storm chaser, Becca
• 51:36
  furnace. She pulls up in her forerunner, and she like, pops
• 51:40
  out, takes a picture. And she's like, Alright, see you later.
• 51:44
  And I'm like, ooh, am I about to get run over by this? And I'm
• 51:49
  like, and then she basically, like, peels out, like to leave.
• 51:54
  And I'm like, well, I should probably go. And then I'm like,
• 51:58
  I need gas, so I pulled at the gas station, and it's like the
• 52:03
  gas pump like is prompting me, like eight different things and
• 52:07
  taking forever, come on, and then
• 52:10
  Casey Fatchett: all of a sudden you are a rewards member. Jake
• 52:13
  Jake Case: It was such a crappy gas station, only even if it had
• 52:18
  a reward program or not, I don't know what it was asking me. I
• 52:23
  was, like, frantic. So the dust, like is literally starts, like,
• 52:28
  hitting the gas station, and I have to, like, cut the pump off
• 52:33
  early at like 10 bucks, and I get on my car and hop on the
• 52:38
  freeway, and all of a sudden it's like almost zero
• 52:42
  visibility, and thus storms moving at like 60 miles an hour,
• 52:46
  and somehow I got ahead of it. So you can imagine, in that
• 52:51
  visibility, I was probably driving, not a safe way,
• 52:58
  Casey Fatchett: trying to get out. Yeah,
• 53:00
  Jake Case: but, but, but, you know, so which, but I've missed
• 53:05
  so many other haboos in the past. I was like, this is like a
• 53:11
  big one. Like, this was like the biggest one. So, you know, I
• 53:18
  got, I got ahead of it and all, and got the photos and all that.
• 53:24
  But the lesson I learned that day is, if I need gas, to just
• 53:30
  get gas
• 53:31
  Casey Fatchett: and not get it earlier, earlier is better
• 53:36
  Jake Case: not, not, not be pulling up to the gas pump on
• 53:39
  empty right before I'm trying to,
• 53:43
  Casey Fatchett: yeah, before the storm hits. Yeah. I mean, I've
• 53:47
  many years of driving in like, blinding snowstorms in the
• 53:50
  Midwest. Is always like, hey, you know what I'm gonna fill up
• 53:55
  first. Because what I can't see is not when I want to, like, be
• 53:59
  wondering where am, I guess, from.
• 54:03
  Jake Case: So and driving through that haboob was, yeah,
• 54:08
  it was pretty, I mean, it was pretty crazy. And I got, I was
• 54:16
  in Phoenix when the haboob rolled in. And I actually, I
• 54:20
  couldn't figure out how to get to the to the spot, like, the
• 54:25
  spot where I was trying to go I'd never been to before is the
• 54:28
  top of this parking garage. And that's where, like, the footage
• 54:32
  that ended up, like on national international. Means it was
• 54:38
  storm chasers that were on top of that garage. It's at the
• 54:41
  Phoenix airport, but I've never been up there before and and so
• 54:46
  I didn't know where to go. So I was driving, like, around the
• 54:48
  airport, like, in a loop, trying to, like, trying to figure it
• 54:51
  out. And then the Habu hit, and it wasn't, this was before dark.
• 54:56
  It was like, five o'clock, and the sun goes down. In it seven.
• 55:00
  It was like two hours before sunset, and it literally got
• 55:06
  dark as night for for like a full minute. It's like when it
• 55:12
  rolled in and the dust was bigger, how long?
• 55:15
  Casey Fatchett: So that's how it doesn't last that long, or when
• 55:21
  it's going over you, if it goes over you,
• 55:23
  Jake Case: yeah, it's basically because it's a wall of dust.
• 55:26
  It's, I mean, it's basically, yeah, it's not like there's this
• 55:31
  swath of dust, like, 50 miles across.
• 55:36
  Casey Fatchett: It's not a dust storm,
• 55:38
  Jake Case: yeah, it's literally, like the wind is pushing this
• 55:42
  wall of dust and kind of like a wall in your house or something,
• 55:46
  where it could be, it could be 70 miles across, but if you look
• 55:52
  at a cross section, it's just like a narrow band where it's,
• 55:56
  like, really thick, okay, and then, Then after it rolls over.
• 56:00
  Usually it's dusty, but it's not like 00, what
• 56:06
  Casey Fatchett: what do you have to do? He I mean, you probably
• 56:09
  don't want to be out there, like with your gear, when, when it
• 56:14
  hits, but any precautions you take with your like, cameras and
• 56:18
  stuff, yeah.
• 56:19
  Jake Case: I mean, when it's a dust storm of that magnitude,
• 56:22
  it's basically like, like, getting the car before it
• 56:27
  actually, like, completely bowls over you. But I've been um,
• 56:33
  after that one, like, a week or two later, there was a nighttime
• 56:37
  a boob, but it was, like, a pretty mild one. And in the
• 56:45
  group chat, I was actually, like messaging, and because I could
• 56:51
  see it like, in the distance, because of the city, like, I was
• 56:54
  in this in the city with, like, all the light glow from the
• 56:57
  city, like, like, I could kind of see it inside message in a
• 57:02
  group chat, somebody else was out photographing, and I was
• 57:05
  like, Hey, is that, like, like, is that a hot boo? Like, he was
• 57:10
  like, further, like, closer to it. He was like, he was like,
• 57:12
  Yeah, but it's like, like, a pretty weak one. So I was out at
• 57:17
  the spot, and I actually, like, got ran over by that one while.
• 57:21
  I was, like, I'd walk from my car, like, 500 yards out into
• 57:24
  the desert to, like, have, like, saguaro cactus before that, and
• 57:30
  I, like, kind of shot it while it was coming in, and then it
• 57:32
  kind of like, ran me over. But it was so, like, it was, wasn't
• 57:38
  like, a big deal, because it was a weak one, but for sure, like,
• 57:42
  I had, like, my weather sealed lenses on my camera box, like,
• 57:49
  when, like, that's the one that's like, the one precaution
• 57:52
  that I take, no matter what, when it's like, probably time,
• 57:55
  is like, I have three weather sealed lenses. Those are the
• 57:59
  lenses I'm using, like, anything else is staying in the bag.
• 58:04
  Yeah, that's probably in the park.
• 58:10
  Casey Fatchett: So, I mean, I can get how this type of thing
• 58:13
  can become a bit of an obsession, because you just,
• 58:17
  like, Chase. You're chasing it. Literally, you're trying to,
• 58:22
  like, get the, the sort of fix of, you know, getting the shot,
• 58:27
  like, what do you see is the like, positive and negative
• 58:31
  effects that this has had. Again, we've talked about mental
• 58:36
  health before, but also, like, your overall, like, life balance.
• 58:45
  Jake Case: Yeah it's you know, because I have, I have a seven
• 58:49
  year old daughter, and I was like, kind of like, trying to go
• 58:53
  storm chasing so frequently that, like, towards the end of
• 58:57
  the season, like, I would be going to lose and my daughter
• 59:01
  would be like, oh, like, I just want you to stay hugging in the
• 59:05
  bed and, like, whatever. And so it's like, you know, that's part
• 59:09
  of it is, like, trying to balance it with the rest of
• 59:13
  life. And so I pretty much just had to, like, Be okay with,
• 59:17
  like, okay. Like, pick my spots of when I can go, but not, like,
• 59:22
  not overdo it, yeah, and, you know, but at the same time, it's
• 59:26
  like, there's for me, there's nothing like it when I'm going
• 59:30
  out or I'm facing, you know, even like, and obviously, like,
• 59:34
  I love, like, traditional landscape Photography, whatever
• 59:38
  you want to call it like, I obviously love that. But there's
• 59:42
  like, but there's like, an adrenaline rush with storm
• 59:46
  chasing, and it's like, and it even starts like, if I'm leaving
• 59:50
  early, like I can if I leave the house at 1pm and the storms
• 59:54
  aren't really supposed to get going till 3pm like. Even, like,
• 59:58
  the first two hours in the car where it's like, I'm just on the
• 1:00:03
  interstate listening to music, and like the clouds are like way
• 1:00:07
  off in the distance, and like it's just basically just like a
• 1:00:11
  road trip at that point, like my heart's already starting to
• 1:00:15
  pound, like I already have adrenaline forcing through my body.
• 1:00:20
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, you're getting pumped up. You're
• 1:00:22
  getting amped up, like, for
• 1:00:23
  Jake Case: and then, and then when you get in the zone of the
• 1:00:27
  storms, and like, there's all this, like, stuff going on, and
• 1:00:31
  like, you're trying to anticipate what's going on,
• 1:00:35
  like, there's just, it's pretty it's pretty intense. And so,
• 1:00:40
  like, you know, and so that, I mean, that aspect of it too,
• 1:00:45
  like doing that, like, multiple times a week, you know, it can
• 1:00:49
  be, it can kind of be exhausting, and it's, you know,
• 1:00:53
  in a in a way That's different than, like, you know, like, back
• 1:00:58
  when I was, like, super into, into, like, like, trying to do,
• 1:01:03
  like, wilderness landscape photography, and be like, I'm
• 1:01:07
  gonna go backpacking and, like, carrying a 40 pound back to the
• 1:01:12
  wilderness, yeah, 1010, miles. Like, that's like, a different
• 1:01:17
  type of
• 1:01:18
  Casey Fatchett: it's adrenaline. It is. It's adrenaline
• 1:01:20
  exhaustion you're getting, like, you're, you're burning out from
• 1:01:25
  like, have being like, too on edge. It's not the same as like,
• 1:01:29
  just like, being like, physically wearing yourself out.
• 1:01:32
  It's, it's this sort of, you feel fried, like the you just,
• 1:01:39
  yeah, I know what you're talking about there's, there's, it's a
• 1:01:41
  distinct difference from being just like, I'm physically beat
• 1:01:47
  it's, there's just some sort of like, you're kind of like, feel
• 1:01:51
  physically worn out, but it's like your body can't, your body
• 1:01:54
  can't produce more adrenaline. You've, you've, you've emptied
• 1:01:59
  yourself, and you are spent adrenaline wise, and you just
• 1:02:04
  like, Okay, I'm, I don't, I feel like a shell in a lot of ways,
• 1:02:11
  yeah, so,
• 1:02:11
  Jake Case: yeah, I have to, like, I have to, kind of like,
• 1:02:16
  pace myself, you know, but, but at the Same time, but, you know,
• 1:02:22
  like we have, we have a short window, and like, this year,
• 1:02:24
  the, you know, I mentioned, like the monsoon is driven by this
• 1:02:29
  high pressure that sits over different parts of the Southwest
• 1:02:34
  that can move and change. What's going on with the monsoon? Well,
• 1:02:36
  this year, for almost the whole month of July, it was actually
• 1:02:43
  over, like, it was over Arizona, like, kind of like the middle of
• 1:02:49
  the state, which means we got no storms here for basically, like,
• 1:02:56
  two, three weeks in a row, And it was sending all the moisture
• 1:03:01
  into New Mexico. New Mexico usually, like, it's a little
• 1:03:05
  monsoon action, but, like, not anywhere as much as we do here
• 1:03:08
  in Arizona. And they had, like, New Mexico had, like, the best
• 1:03:14
  monsoon that they probably ever had, at least for like, the
• 1:03:17
  month of July. And Lori Bailey, she was, like, she was out there
• 1:03:23
  chasing it. She, I think she photographed, like, six haboots
• 1:03:26
  in New Mexico, like, over the course of a few weeks, you know,
• 1:03:33
  and then we were out everybody in Arizona is, like, out here,
• 1:03:35
  like, hand, this sucks. And then, and then it shifted in
• 1:03:40
  August and into September, it was like, going strong and, and,
• 1:03:46
  you know, I was like, well, July sucks. So, like, I gotta, like,
• 1:03:50
  I gotta go hard and, you know, but by September, I was like,
• 1:03:58
  yeah, like you said, I was bright, maybe overcoming
• 1:04:01
  yourself. I was, in some ways, in ways, I was glad that the
• 1:04:04
  mons season, monsoon season was over, because I was like, I need
• 1:04:07
  to need a break. I need to come down from this a little bit.
• 1:04:12
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, recharge, recharge the batteries. So now
• 1:04:18
  that you've gained some experience this and you feel
• 1:04:21
  more comfortable at it. What advice would you give to other
• 1:04:25
  photographers who want to chase the monsoon or just like do
• 1:04:29
  storm chasing in general, but don't know where to begin?
• 1:04:37
  Jake Case: I mean, if somebody's here locally, like living in
• 1:04:41
  Arizona, I mean, it's, it's pretty much just like, when a
• 1:04:45
  storm's kind of near your house, just like, like, go out and try
• 1:04:49
  to get some lightning photos and do it like, lightning is easier
• 1:04:54
  to shoot after dark. Because you can just do a long exposure. You
• 1:04:59
  can just do them over and over and over, back to back to back,
• 1:05:03
  and you'll eventually get something, you know, it does
• 1:05:07
  see, you know, you know, because I've had days where it's been
• 1:05:11
  like, Okay, I'm going to drive, like, three hours because
• 1:05:15
  there's going to be this awesome storm, you know, down there, and
• 1:05:20
  there's other stuff going on, but like, it looks like it's
• 1:05:24
  going to be the best, like, down near Tucson, and I'll drive down
• 1:05:29
  there, and then it'll kind of bust, and then I'll look at the
• 1:05:33
  weather radar, and there'll be a storm, like, right over my
• 1:05:37
  house. I'm like, I just gone 10 minutes from my house and gotten
• 1:05:42
  a better storm than what I drew three hours to get so, like,
• 1:05:46
  yeah. Like, if you can stay local, and that goes for
• 1:05:50
  anywhere, like, if you're, if you're, like, Okay, I live in
• 1:05:54
  Delaware, but I want to get lightning photos. Like, you
• 1:05:58
  don't have to, you don't have to travel. Just like, pay attention
• 1:06:02
  to the weather every day and when, like, the storms are
• 1:06:06
  getting close to you just go to, like, a local spot and, like,
• 1:06:11
  try it out. And then, then the other thing is, like, if you're
• 1:06:15
  traveling to go try to do swarm chasing, whether you're going to
• 1:06:19
  the planes or, like, Arizona, or whatever, like, just know that
• 1:06:24
  if you're planning in advance, like the week that you're going
• 1:06:28
  to be somewhere, like it could be a down weekend, there could
• 1:06:33
  be no storms. But definitely, I've had, like I said, Success
• 1:06:37
  with, like, storm chasing, but also keeping my mind open to
• 1:06:41
  shooting other things, you know, you know, everybody has their
• 1:06:45
  own way of doing it, but I do, I do think it's beneficial to keep
• 1:06:50
  your mind open that whenever you're going out, like, get what
• 1:06:54
  you can get and you'll have a good Time.
• 1:06:58
  Casey Fatchett: I think that's great advice, because it you're
• 1:07:02
  not setting yourself up to like, I'm only successful if I get a
• 1:07:08
  storm photo today. It's, I'm gonna go out here and I'm, yeah,
• 1:07:14
  maybe I'll shoot a landscape and I'm gonna find something or I'm
• 1:07:16
  gonna find something interesting. I'm gonna find a
• 1:07:18
  interesting cactus. Or I'm, like, wherever you are, you're
• 1:07:21
  going to find something else that you're going to shoot. And
• 1:07:23
  if the storm comes along, like, Great, I'm here, like, you're
• 1:07:27
  keeping an eye on it. You're, you're, that's what, that is
• 1:07:29
  your main goal. But like, while you're there, waiting for the
• 1:07:33
  storm, or looking for the storm, finding other things to shoot
• 1:07:36
  gives you a sense of purpose and accomplishment that you actually
• 1:07:42
  did something while you were out there, as opposed to just like,
• 1:07:45
  oh, this is a, this is a bust, and they didn't get anything out
• 1:07:49
  of it whatsoever.
• 1:07:52
  Jake Case: Yeah, for sure, you know, I think it's a, you know,
• 1:07:56
  I kind of have a funny analogy for it, especially here in
• 1:08:01
  Arizona with our when we talked about the bad road network, it's
• 1:08:05
  kind of cliche to, you know, anything that you're doing. It's
• 1:08:10
  kind of a cliche to be like, Oh, it's like a game of chess, but,
• 1:08:15
  but, but, but, I've been super into chess lately. So, so, you
• 1:08:20
  know, I've come up with, like, all these crazy analogies with
• 1:08:24
  it. I won't get too deep into it, because anybody that doesn't
• 1:08:29
  play chess will, like, turn off the podcast, but it's, you know,
• 1:08:34
  it's, but it is like a game of chess where, like, you have to,
• 1:08:38
  you have to, you know, to be like, a really good storm sheet.
• 1:08:43
  So you have to, like, learn all this theory instead of chess,
• 1:08:48
  theory of meteorology. But you're not playing against an
• 1:08:52
  opponent. The storms aren't, aren't thinking about what
• 1:08:56
  you're doing, they have no idea. Yeah. And then the game of
• 1:09:01
  chess, you have like, 16 pieces on your side, well, in storm
• 1:09:05
  chasing, you have youth, and maybe you're with a friend, but
• 1:09:10
  like you're in a car, you know, so you can only move yourself.
• 1:09:14
  And and it's, you know, with the road network, it's not like
• 1:09:19
  you're to move anywhere on the chessboard, like you you only
• 1:09:24
  have certain ways you can move at certain speeds depending on
• 1:09:28
  the roads. But the storm, it can. It's like the queen. It can
• 1:09:33
  move anywhere at one Oh, but, but you have one piece, well,
• 1:09:37
  well, the storms, it can spawn new queens, left and right. It
• 1:09:42
  can have its pieces disappear. It can, it can, kind of do
• 1:09:46
  whatever it wants. And you can't checkmate the storms, but the
• 1:09:51
  storms, a lightning bolt could drop, and you could get
• 1:09:55
  checkmated. And you know,
• 1:09:57
  Casey Fatchett: yeah, you don't want to get checkmated. You. So
• 1:10:01
  Jake Case: I don't know. I think when, when you put it in that
• 1:10:03
  perspective, it like, it kind of shows, like, how, how difficult
• 1:10:09
  form shapes can be. And I'm not trying to say it's like,
• 1:10:12
  necessarily more difficult than other types of photography, but
• 1:10:17
  it's definitely, like, it's definitely its own beast, and it
• 1:10:21
  out it's harder than it works. Yeah, I guess, like anything
• 1:10:26
  else you see, the photos other people post on the internet,
• 1:10:30
  yeah, and you think that they don't tell you, they don't tell
• 1:10:33
  you, Oh, I busted eight times before I got it a good photo
• 1:10:37
  this summer. Or they don't tell you, you know, you know, just
• 1:10:42
  everything that it took to get there. And that goes, you know,
• 1:10:45
  for you know, people that you know, like yourself, that shoot
• 1:10:49
  weddings. You know, there's all these different parts of wedding
• 1:10:53
  photography where it's beyond, it's beyond the photography
• 1:10:57
  part, yeah, that makes it difficult. Every every form of
• 1:11:02
  photography has its own, its own challenges, but, yeah, storm
• 1:11:07
  chasing is definitely a unique
• 1:11:14
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  Unknown: Hey, now for my favorite part of the show,
• 1:13:42
  what's that? Say? Useless information. This is always
• 1:13:47
  death.
• 1:13:49
  Casey Fatchett: Jake,
• 1:13:49
  Jake Case: oh, man, this is my least favorite part where you
• 1:13:52
  make this is where you make me look really dumb.
• 1:13:55
  Casey Fatchett: No, as recently as the 18th century. What do you
• 1:14:02
  think is the average height of a human man was,
• 1:14:08
  Jake Case: all right, the 18th century. So the 18th century,
• 1:14:12
  that's this, the 1700s Yep. And currently, the average height of
• 1:14:19
  an adult man is what like 510 Yep, 1700s I'm gonna say
• 1:14:29
  Casey Fatchett: five eight. It's even shorter. It's 5656 Wow,
• 1:14:35
  five six, which is why it's very funny that people made fun of
• 1:14:39
  Napoleon and like, made like he was short. He was actually like,
• 1:14:43
  five, seven or five, eight. Excuse me, he was actually kind
• 1:14:50
  of tall. He was tall for the Yeah, for the time. But
• 1:14:55
  everybody, like, kind of like, like, referred to him as a like,
• 1:14:58
  you know, like they made fun of him. Um, it just wasn't true. He
• 1:15:03
  wasn't he wasn't short, he wasn't super short.
• 1:15:06
  Jake Case: That's pretty funny.
• 1:15:08
  Casey Fatchett: Jake, what it's pleasure to have you back. Or
• 1:15:11
  did you have a question about Napoleon
• 1:15:13
  Jake Case: No, no, yeah, no. Good. That was a good one, definitely.
• 1:15:23
  Casey Fatchett: Thank you for coming back. Where can listeners
• 1:15:26
  find you and see more of your work?
• 1:15:30
  Jake Case: I mean, mostly on threads, Instagram, photo app,
• 1:15:37
  Casey, occasionally on blue sky, Facebook, but, yeah, yeah,
• 1:15:46
  threads, Instagram, or where I'm most active,
• 1:15:53
  Casey Fatchett: at J case photo, yeah.
• 1:15:57
  Jake Case: Or you can just type my name into Google and
• 1:16:00
  Casey Fatchett: it'll it'll send you somewhere and find you
• 1:16:02
  photos.
• 1:16:05
  Jake Case: Yeah, Google, Google, AI will tell you, will pop up
• 1:16:09
  and tell you about how crafty of a storm chaser I am. And then
• 1:16:14
  you'll find my solution.
• 1:16:15
  Casey Fatchett: That's, that's nice do. You can also go to the
• 1:16:18
  links in the Episode Notes of this episode, and I will have
• 1:16:22
  all the links to Jake's different profiles so you can go
• 1:16:24
  and check them out, Jake once again, thanks for coming by.
• 1:16:27
  You're welcome back anytime.
• 1:16:29
  Jake Case: All right, thanks for having
• 1:16:39
  Casey Fatchett: Welcome back. The crew and I are approaching
• 1:16:41
  the eye of the storm. I really want to thank Jake case for
• 1:16:45
  being on the show, and I hope you enjoyed our conversation in
• 1:16:47
  that you learned a little something about storm chasing
• 1:16:49
  and monsoon season. Be sure to go to the Episode notes and
• 1:16:53
  follow Jake so you can see all of his amazing work, as well as
• 1:16:56
  being sure to follow the nerdy photographer on the socials at
• 1:16:59
  the nerdy photo. That's at the nerdy photo, Reddit, Instagram,
• 1:17:05
  Tiktok threads at the nerdy photo and subscribe to the show
• 1:17:10
  and leave us a review. Why? Because you're cool. That's why,
• 1:17:13
  and that's what cool people do,
• 1:17:16
  Fibonacci: entering the eye in 321, two, one.
• 1:17:29
  Casey Fatchett: Wow, that's just glorious.
• 1:17:36
  It's one of those times that you know having an audio only
• 1:17:40
  podcast really doesn't capture the grandeur of of what we're
• 1:17:44
  seeing here. You know, until next time, everybody stay safe
• 1:17:49
  and stay nerdy.
• 1:18:02
  Unknown: Ever your heart been beating about? Get better. Get
• 1:18:07
  better. Get better. Get better. Listen, you.