Mike Hollingshead is a storm chaser and he is one outstanding photographer. This is how he describes his passion. “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.”

Here is a small sample of his work.

More at Extreme Instability.