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Where to start. I've typed this thing a few times over the years and always want to change it. Here is the latest, simpler version, or so I'm setting out that way. My name is Mike Hollingshead. I was born and raised in Blair, Nebraska. Graduated high school here and that was about it as far as education. I started college a few places, but quickly quit after doing so each time. That's likely to do with the fact I still don't know what I want to do. I don't want to work much, that's about all I am sure of...unless it relates to this hobby/job/site. I started out as a storm chaser, with no plans or desire to shoot still images. My thing was just video taping storms with a cheap camcorder. I soon saw a few cool skies and realized I needed something better to show the images on my site. So I had to buy a still camera, a Sony F707 in July of 2002. I only briefly had a still camera in my past. I had a film rebel for a couple months back in 96 or so. I shot maybe 4 rolls with it, before trading my sister for her video camera. I began storm chasing May 16, 1999 but had always filmed and watched storms from town. Watching storms from town and actually heading out to chase are two very different things. If one ever wants to see amazing storms you're going to have to drive a lot and often for nothing. Each year I would increase my chases. I'm now to around 40 chases a year, which is more than enough. In 2005 I had just over 18,000 miles dedicated just to chasing storms. In 2006 it was around 22,000 miles which ranged from TX to ND and CO to IN.
One can become so addicted to something that they lose all ability to view it from an outside angle. It's hard for me to step back and see how crazy doing this kind of is. I've woke up early in the morning and driven to Texas from near Omaha Nebraska, all for nothing, hoping to see cool clouds. To a chaser this does not seem at all crazy. If I try hard I can sort of see how crazy it really might be. The odds are very stacked against you seeing something very crazy, but we go anyway, often affraid of missing something. It can't be a very healthy hobby if you do it hard year after year. It is a bit depressing being so far from home and seeing crap storms, or nothing at all, then having to start that long drive back, often while extremely tired...and repeating this often. This is now my "job" as of March 2004. I quit my old job because I hated it. I had no idea what I was going to do, my only plan was to chase all of spring 2004 then get a job in the summer or fall. Well things happen and here I am 3+ years later with no job outside of this. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to make it work, but I will try. Being free to chase is obviously important to being able to find those cool skies. If I do get a job, I'll certainly chase less, but still be able to chase plenty living where I do.
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Site Navigation: I'm sure this is pretty self explanatory but figured I'd include it in the About section here anyway. MAIN PAGE I try to mention any updates at the bottom of the page. If you get lost just click on the main page link. I say to do this because I can make sure to keep my links updated here. If I change my table of links I have to do it one by one on every single page on here(since I never did this with style sheets or whatever I'd need to make that easier). There are probably a couple hundred pages on here with all the image by year entries and it's not a fun task changing them all. The main page should always have the correct links(as should the other main pages....just maybe not every single entry of photos page). *IMAGES BY YEAR* This is pretty much the main part of my site. This is where I do the photo entries, mostly storm chasing. July 2002 onward all have ditigal stills with a small mix of video captures. Before July 2002 everything is a video capture. IMAGE LICENSING This is mostly for photo licensing to magazines or ad agencies, etc, but I'm open to video stuff as well. STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY I made this photo album section to hopefully make picking stock images easier, for those wanting to purchase image rights for various things. CHASE VIDEOS Along with the still photography, I shoot video of the storm chases. My DVDs can be found here. PHOTOGRAPHY SALES Section for print sales to anywhere in the world. I don't frame them at this time. I can do other images on request(most other images anyway). I will try to keep on adding to this page. The pay is through paypal, but you can do this without a paypal account using most any credit card. You can also mail a check if you like. WALLPAPER IMAGES I had a very large section of these but it scared me having that many up. I'll try to mix them up with some new stuff from time to time. I currently don't sell other images for wallpapers and don't like to hand out high res photos when it is not for an image licensed for some use. STORM GLOSSARY/ INFO I'm not meteorologist but have a pretty good understanding of storm structure at this point. Many images are included in this section. Hopefully I'll add more and talk more about it. FAQ/INFO I get asked so many different things so I had to include a FAQ(Frequently Asked Questions). If it ain't on there feel free to ask. I'm forgetting to add so many things to this. CHASING LINKS I try to keep my links; storm, chasing, or photography related, so if you want me to link to you and it's not one of those, it probably won't happen. If you fit those and want added, e-mail me. I'm tempted to remove the photography ones that aren't also chasers. There's just too many sites and I know I'll be asked a too often to be added to those. TOPICS I just added this section and it's basically a misc section for anything. Look for future photography talk in that area as well as other things relating to chasing, or just anything. I'm sure I'll have many rants in there as well. CONTACT Contact me if you like, but please check out the FAQ and Storm Glossary sections. I make it a point to answer every e-mail. There are rare exceptions where I won't. If I don't you might try sending it again as perhaps it got lost in puterland. I get a lot of e-mail, or at least have in the past, and to be honest, I've gotten a bit burned out on the whole thing. I'm now officially a bad e-mail procrastinator. Anymore I end up putting off answering things for up to a week or more. I keep saying later and later till one night I'll just sit down and answer them all. If you are e-mailing about licensing something my reply should be very quick. I'm simply not able to procrastinate on those.
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A bit about animals: I'm a huge animal lover. All life really. I am truly bothered by how animals are treated and wish I could somehow change things. Example. A dog on a chain is just flat out wrong. If it were up to me this would be illegal. So easy for me to see how wrong it is. It boggles my mind someone can do this to their pet. Accepted things aren't always right. It's a LIFE on a chain, no other way about it. One night after a chase I saw this little dog in a backyard on a chain, sitting there all by itself in the world, looking towards this house. I hoped it was just out there for the time it takes to go potty and that that wasn't the norm of its life. I really sort of doubted that was the case. I just see this LIFE just like mine and yours with all this curiosity stuck to that pole for its little eternity. What was its point in being created if that is its life? Fed and ignored perhaps, we know this happens out there. I want to run around and cut chains when I see it's not just out going potty. Sucks there have to be pets as is, least one could do is make that animal's life as free as they possibly can. And a chain....well.....truly horrible if you stop and look at it and think. I can see a few of your faces as you read this. Probably saying, "what a wuss". Ah well. Thinking is not the hardest thing to do. We all see the same thing(s). Wish we all could have a bit more compassion even if it means "going out of our way". Accepted things aren't always right. Take a second and look again. Open up your mind to what it is you are seeing, not the fact you are used to seeing it. Here is one way to look at it. Say 10 years is the average life span of a dog. Now think back 10 years and how long ago that was. Imagine all of the things that have happened in your life and instead of those times being free to you to do what you wanted, put your neck in a chain and strap it to a tree or pole for that whole time...long boring day after long boring day...years worth of them. And it really isn't about just pole and chain, but even just being ignored and left isolated. It is not hard to do a few things to make a LIFE better. By the way, I don't hate people who have things this way with their dog. I only wish it could bug them like it does me now. It never used to bug me, but somewhere along the way, I noticed enough to be bothered. Hell I feel sorry the 2 cats I "rescued" have to be locked up in my apartment now and can no longer be free(yeah, being free has its own issues too). I obviously don't have any answers to "what else to do with them", but I only hope some can at least notice enough, then care enough, to do what they can. I feel bad for my parent's bored indoor dogs, so I go and take them for walks pretty much every single day, even when I don't want to get up and go anywhere. If I had a dog on a chain, or in a tiny fence, the first thing on my to do list would be build a bigger fence, if there was just no way to let it inside. I just see far too many sad cases where surely the owner could do better. I'm all over the plains, and anymore, I really fear glancing over to back or front yards, for what I'll probably be seeing, again and again. Here is a GREAT site I was just sent: Dogs Deserve Better.org |
