Day -2 - Into the male-strom...

So this a first – an all-male crew for trip number 8, certainly feels a long time since trip number 1 back in 2006.

Some may think stormchasing is a singularly male pursuit but all trips I’ve been on have been mixed (i.e. with women…) so this is likely to be a different dynamic. Our boys are half Dutch, a third Britsh and one sixth New Zealander. No not all brothers, from three different countries…

Anyway I’m on the train to Manchester Airport on the now familiar route to Atlanta tomorrow then on to Oklahoma City, a joyous journey of some 34 hours door to door all being well – I’ll come on to that later.

Packing is now second nature only taking the best part of two days. Smallish suitcase, day sack and camera bag. This is why we do lists, same as last time and the time before and so on with the timeline only really apparent as new camera kit comes to market. Compare, contrast with 2006, the current kit is as follows:

Nikon Z7 with 24-105 f4
Nikon D800 with 15-30 f2.8
100-400 and…
Yashicamat 124G, a Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) FILM camera. Timeline well and truly bent.

The digital kit is preeminent for chasing. Zooms, crazy ISOs, endless dynamic range, machine gun frame rates, peerless autofocus, weather proofing (der) and – no excuse to miss the shot. And if you do…choose from the other several hundred/thousand shots you made.

The Yashicamat is from a different era. A Japanese copy of the much feted Rolleiflex, it’s been available in some form I believe since the 1950’s. Mine is the final version from the early eighties, takes me back to “the cheapest route into medium format” some three and a half decades ago.

The Yashcamat is simplicity itself. Load the 120 film, remove the lens cap and flick open the waist level finder. The meter turns on, you look down at the laterally reversed image, focus through the “viewing lens”, turn a couple of knobs to select shutter speed and aperture to get the meter needle to move to the right place and that’s it. Finish off with a squeeze of the shutter release with the quietest of clicks as the leaf shutter exposes the film and the “taking lens” does its stuff. At some point, often quite some time after, process the film, scan it and share or print. The results are amazing, big, square 6x6cm negs with a timeless quality. Those square Instagram pics are inspired by FILM – of which I have plenty including Kodak Ektar 100, the sublime Porta 400, some Fuji 400H and a couple of rolls of Cinestill 50, cut down from cine film stock. All in all a camera for for non-weather days I think.

So back to the weather. After a very lean 2017, God’s  conveyor belt is slated to produce day after day after day AFTER DAY of severe weather across the Great Plains. This week is the historical bulls-eye of the season – it could also be an historic bulls-eye. As of a couple of days ago the Storm Prediction Centre 4-8 day forecast was showing severe weather every day; unprecedented I believe.

A quietish tour 2 is scheduled to finish with a bang on Friday (17^th May) with the rest day between tours set aside for Saturday now abandoned as there is a severe weather enhanced risk  for south of Oklahoma in north east Texas. As luck (more like foresight) would have it we’re all scheduled to arrive on Friday so will meet at 08:00, visit the National Weather Service in Norman south of Oklahoma City (that should be interesting bearing in mind what is to come) and see what happens after that. I’ll be extra knackered :o)

So our ten day tour is now eleven days. Woohoo. Yes I did say ten (10) day tour not the usual seven, so we can buy more tickets on the weather lottery and hopefully Mother Nature is looking to pay out. Hopefully this won’t be an anti-climax  and hopefully the weather on Friday won’t bugger up the flight into Oklahoma City. You pays yer money, you takes yer chance. I’ll try and get an update done on the weather from the airport in the morning.

Not far from Manchester Airport and some extortionate hotel Guinness…