View allAll Photos Tagged GREATPLAIN
From Flagstaff Mountain looking east at sunset, over Boulder, which is at the base of the mountain. The slash of red tile roofs marks the University of Colorado. On the right is the top of the first Flatiron, and beyond that is Denver.
The Great Plains look very, very flat.
Spectacular clouds from a clearing thunderstorm at sunset over an abandoned building in rural Western Nebraska.
Puzzles and Prints: tom-schwabel.pixels.com
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"I grow very fond of this place, and it certainly has a desolate, grim beauty of its own, that has a curious fascination for me." Theodore Roosevelt
Colorful bluffs in TRNP's North Unit bear witness to the many sediments that comprise them.
I have mixed feelings about scenes like this. I love the visual appeal of these huge silos - reflective and graphic - but they also represent the growth of industrial agriculture that has come to dominate the Prairies and Great Plains. Despite that, I recognize, though, that the industrial is beautiful (at least to me) in its own way.
North Dakota
I wrote a blog post about my December 2019 trip to Manitoba and North Dakota, if you're interested in reading about where this image was made.
Creating an effect like an artist with a palette knife, the rising sun slathers color across a rich canvas of layered clouds east of Boulder, Colorado.
In late December a raging prairie fire swept through this very spot, driven by 100+ mile per hour winds and fueled onward by the general lack of snow cover that might have otherwise slowed it down. I haven't returned to this vantage since the fire, and there is a strong possibility that the house you see here in the distance no longer stands. Over 1000 homes were burned, and I think everyone in the local community knows someone who lost something.
A zoomed in image captured of a portion of this herd of bison using a Tamron 150-600mm lens I'd recently purchase for wildlife photography.
Piano Grande (Great Plain - 1270m) is a flat limestone plateau high in the Monti Sibillini National Park in Umbria. I read about this place in a travel guide and I'm glad we went up there, it's an amazing landscape.
See also here
At this point the dirt road took a hard right, but the electrical poles continued on over what I assumed was a farmer's field. Perfect!
North Dakota.
I wrote a blog post about my December 2019 trip to Manitoba and North Dakota, if you're interested in reading about where this image was made.
Lightning and precipitation from a supercell thunderstorm over farmland in rural Nebraska.
Puzzles and Prints: tom-schwabel.pixels.com
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This is a copyrighted image with all rights reserved. Please don't use this image on websites, blogs, facebook, or other media without my explicit permission. See profile page for information on prints and licensing.
Weather report on 5/24/2020 showed thunderstorms likely on the eastern plains of Colorado. So without hesitation, I grabbed my camera, filters, lenses, tripod, cheez-its, and water and started driving "that way". I had no destination in mind, other than I wanted to drive roads I hadn't driven before (more on that later in other posts).
Some of the towns I passed through were Kit Carson, Eads, Lamar, Springfield, and Kim. None of which are your typical Colorado vacation spots (although it's really pretty near Kim in the Comanche National Grassland area).
Things started to perk up around 3:00 pm. I could see clouds to my west. By 3:45 pm MT, it was game on. It got real serious real quick. Now that I've had a chance to edit the RAW shot, I'm not certain this is a tornado, but at the time it looked pretty convincing. Still does, actually. Might just be some weird outflows from the storm that made it look like a tornado.
The storm(s) were approaching from the south west, so I had to back track northeast to stay ahead of it. I'd drive down the road, pull over, take some shots, then get back in and drive on (more scenes coming). I was skirting the edge of the storm for about 45 minutes. With limited roads, there was no way to stay in front of it so I found the least likely spot for hail, pulled over, and let it pass overhead. Unfortunately, I did get hailed on (marble size at times), but that was a lot better than the golfball size hail I saw driving around after it passed.
The collaboration project between Von Wong and myself was great fun. I have been so excited to share new images including 5 new large format panoramas. This is one of my favorites. 18 images stitched together to capture this amazing tornado warned supercell outside of Boyes, Montana with an impressive shelf cloud feature. I kinda like my storm chasing vehicle in there too :) Thanks for looking!
For more about the project and more images please visit
A rare view of a typical hail core on a small isolated supercell thunderstorm cell, moving across the great plains of Nebraska. Print..
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Low-hanging clouds over a wind farm.
North Dakota.
I wrote a blog post about my December 2019 trip to Manitoba and North Dakota, if you're interested in reading about where this image was made.
The culmination of a difficult and often frustrating day of chasing on the Wyoming plains. This storm eventually developed to produce the lightning show featured a few posts ago on my photostream.
Lightning from a supercell thunderstorm developing at sunset near Newcastle, Wyoming.
Puzzles and Prints: tom-schwabel.pixels.com
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Honorable Mention, Oregon State Fair Photography Competition, 2021.
This is a copyrighted image with all rights reserved. Please don't use this image on websites, blogs, facebook, or other media without my explicit permission. See profile page for information on prints and licensing.
A view looking to the west-northwest while hiking along the Painted Canyon Trail in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. What I wanted to capture here was a sweeping view across this portion of the national park to that canyon wall and hill off in the distance. Another reason for angling my Nikon SLR camera slightly downward was because the sun was almost directly ahead, so keeping it focused slightly downward helped to minimize any lens flares that I had noticed. For this image, I used a tripod to mount my Nikon SLR camera and then used a CamRanger so that I could meter and compose the image captured.
Lightning and precipitation from a supercell thunderstorm at sunset near Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Second Place, Color, Oregon State Fair Photography Competition, 2024.
Puzzles and Prints: tom-schwabel.pixels.com
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This is a copyrighted image with all rights reserved. Please don't use this image on websites, blogs, facebook, or other media without my explicit permission. See profile page for information on prints and licensing.
You're going to ask what this building is, and I'm not sure. I just loved the pop of colours in the scene.
I do remember, though, that when I pulled off to photograph this building, a truck pulled over (it's usually a truck) and a guy rolled down his window and asked, "Is everything OK, ma'am?" This happens all the time on the Prairies and, as a city girl, used to just being ignored, I always appreciate it.
North Dakota.
I wrote a blog post about my December 2019 trip to Manitoba and North Dakota, if you're interested in reading about where this image was made.
From the sublime to the ridiculous!
After my fantastic Japan trip In March, I did something very, very different. In May I went storm chasing in Tornado Alley. Tornado Alley, which stretches from Texas through to Nebraska, is the area of the U.S. which gets the most severe weather, and the most tornadoes, every spring. Over 8 days, I chased storms through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico with the amazing Mike Olbinski. What an incredible adventure it was!
This trip involved a very different style of photography for me, but it's always fun to try something different. I hope you like the results.
In even more of a departure, I tried my hand at time lapse on this trip. If you'd like to see the time lapse film I made, it's on YouTube.
Oklahoma. May 21, 2017.
If you'd like see more images I took while storm chasing, take a look at my Storm Chasing album.
A quite fine flying saucer supercell that we watched grow and evolve as it moved across the plains of Eastern Wyoming.
Lightning and precipitation from a supercell mesocyclone thunderstorm at sunset near Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Puzzles and Prints: tom-schwabel.pixels.com
Facebook: @tomschwabelphotography
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This is a copyrighted image with all rights reserved. Please don't use this image on websites, blogs, facebook, or other media without my explicit permission. See profile page for information on prints and licensing.
I posted this image in black and white in the first series from North Dakota and a friend asked me what it would look like in colour. I liked it, which got me looking for others I could post in colour and that led to this second little series. So, thanks to that friend!
Arena, North Dakota.
I wrote a blog post about my December 2019 trip to Manitoba and North Dakota, if you're interested in reading about it.
This was the best storm we saw in the 7 days before the epic last day storm I've been posting from for the last few days.
Near Quinter, Kansas.
If you'd like see more images I took while storm chasing, both this year and last year, take a look at my Storm Chasing album.
A view looking to the southeast while at River Bend Overlook one "early" morning in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
A large bumble-bee works over the profuse flowers of a Narrow-leaf Penstemon at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, Colorado. I recently learned that bumble bee wings create two different vortices underneath the insect which are responsible for keeping the otherwise ponderous bees aloft. The wings of more primitive, slender insects like flies only create a single vortex. However, it seems that dual vortices are somewhat hard to control and result in erratic 'bumbling' flight.
One of my favorite Beatrix Potter stories is The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse. In this particular tale there are two supporting characters who together manage to drive the titular Tittlemouse to distraction. One is Mr. Jackson, a toad who lives in a nearby drainage ditch, and the other is Babbitty Bumble, a fierce, large bumble bee who establishes an unwanted nest in one of Mrs. Tittlemouse's store-rooms. Mr. Jackson attempts to snap up Babbitty, only to spit her out again exclaiming, "I do not like bumble bees. They are all over bristles." That phrase has stuck with me for decades, and I am sure I will be muttering it in my twilight years to nobody in particular even though I quite like bumble bees.
I have a hard-bound collection of all the Potter stories that my grandmother gave me when I was born. She was the head librarian for Portland Public Schools for many years, and I wish I had the opportunity to get to know her better before she passed away.
Here is a 12 image panorama of a amazing supercell moving towards our location in Pine Haven, Wyoming. This was part of my storm chasing collaboration with Von Wong. We were trying to get to Devils Tower a few miles away, but I didn't want to risk getting ran over from this tornado warned storm. This was one of the best storms of the trip. I hope you enjoy, please let me know what you think!
Meta: 12 images shot RAW with my Canon 5D Mark III at 24mm with my RRS PG-02 Pano / Gimbal head. Stitched together in Lightroom CC 2015 and finished in Photoshop CC 2015.
Back from 10 days of storm chasing in the central plains. An unusual heatwave made things challenging, but we still managed to find some storms to chase.
A nighttime lightning display lights up the sky and clouds near Newcastle, Wyoming. This is a single 30 second exposure.
Puzzles and Prints: tom-schwabel.pixels.com
Facebook: @tomschwabelphotography
Instagram: @tomschwabelphotography
This is a copyrighted image with all rights reserved. Please don't use this image on websites, blogs, facebook, or other media without my explicit permission. See profile page for information on prints and licensing.
While not the most powerful storm we saw, the fact that we watched this storm form almost directly overhead right at sunset was pretty amazing.
Ominous clouds and lightning from a supercell thunderstorm developing at sunset near Newcastle, Wyoming.
Puzzles and Prints: tom-schwabel.pixels.com
Facebook: @tomschwabelphotography
Instagram: @tomschwabelphotography
This is a copyrighted image with all rights reserved. Please don't use this image on websites, blogs, facebook, or other media without my explicit permission. See profile page for information on prints and licensing.
A baby supercell.
On the first day of my storm chasing trip we saw this lovely little supercell in the Texas Panhandle.
Texas. May 15, 2017.
In May, 2017 I went storm chasing in Tornado Alley. Tornado Alley, which stretches from Texas through to Nebraska, is the area of the U.S. which gets the most severe weather, and the most tornadoes, every spring. Over 8 days, I chased storms through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico with the amazing Mike Olbinski. What an incredible adventure it was!
In a bit of a departure for me, I tried my hand at time lapse on this trip. If you'd like to see the time lapse film I made, it's on YouTube.
If you'd like see more images I took while storm chasing, take a look at my Storm Chasing album.
The abrupt rise of the Continental Divide from the Great Plains is a transition that still inspires some awe, despite having lived in proximity to it for almost 15 years. The pond in the foreground is part of a group that were originally a gravel quarry, but are now a source of wetland habitat and recreation.
On the South Channel of the Platte, near Fort Kearny State Recreation Area, Kearney County, Nebraska
Infrared loves clouds. : ) And lightning.
Oklahoma Panhandle. May 21, 2017
In May, 2017 I went storm chasing in Tornado Alley. Tornado Alley, which stretches from Texas through to Nebraska, is the area of the U.S. which gets the most severe weather, and the most tornadoes, every spring. Over 8 days, I chased storms through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. What an incredible adventure it was!
I tried my hand at time lapse on this trip. If you'd like to see the time lapse film I made, it's on YouTube in 4K and on Flickr, too.
Every March, more than half a million Sandhill cranes congregate along a stretch of the Platte river during their migration north.
Anvil crawler lightning discarges. most likely the last strike as the supercell dissipates. Captured last chase season outside Matador, Texas. Love the colors and contrast of this one.
Another image from Abbott Church in Colorado earlier this summer. Such a great little church in the middle of the vast expanse of eastern Colorado.
No HDR with this shot. Just blended two RAW shots; one for the clouds and another for the foreground.
Opted for a very wide angle to capture the remoteness and minimalist view. I wish I had more megapixels for greater detail, but it's fine for web viewing. Maybe I'll splurge and get the new Canon R5 (*cough*)! it has 45mp instead of 30mp. =)