WLM
WLM: Any atypical days/stories? NW: Wow, too many to list. I’ve been stuck in severe lightning storms in the desert or mountains with no cover; caught in large hail with the poor Jeep getting beat up; been chased by a young bull moose in full rut; wandered through the basins in blizzards. Wyoming is full of atypical days...they sort of become the norm after a while if you are outdoors enough. I’ve just learned to roll with them. I’m lucky to have such a patient and adventurous wife or I’d probably be divorced already. WLM: So you have one full day, any kind of weather you’d want, any place in Wyoming you want – where would you go & what would you photograph? NW: Haha, yes! I’d be high in the mountains, probably Cloud Peak Wilderness, with a very slow moving and beautifully structured supercell storm -- lightning everywhere and it’s sunset. Then a tornado drops out of the storm, a rainbow forms in the rain curtain, lightning strikes, and I capture the most ultimate severe weather, mountain, tornado, rainbow, sunset, lightning photo ever! Bonus if there are some wildflowers and a waterfall in the composition. Throw in a majestic bull elk lit up in the golden light since I’m dreaming here. Might as well dream big. WLM: Similar to that – if money were no object, and you could go anywhere in the world to photograph, where would you go & what would you capture? NW: This is going to sound crazy, but I’d stay in Wyoming, perhaps some of the adjoining states. I’d get my hands on a great film camera capable of shooting raw footage at 120fps, and some new time lapse gear with multiple axis capability. Then I would spend a few years capturing wilderness and high plains/ mountain scenery in both slow motion and time lapse. I’d make a two or three hour film out of it. As far as I’m aware, no one has done that in this area. I could die a content man knowing I was able to help preserve some of that beauty for future generations that might not get the same chances I had. So, if anyone reading this would like to hook me up with a grant, I’ll make the coolest “Wyoming Wildscapes” ever, haha! WLM: I really like your image “Chaos Rainbow.” In Wyoming, we often overlook how much our big open skies reveal. A storm that moves across the open prairie lends a feeling of chaos to humans, yet is it really chaotic? As a photographer, does your art lead you toward a greater understanding of the earth and its power, whether chaotic or systematic? NW: Oh yeah, totally chaotic, but it’s organized chaos. All four elements
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are working in unison to produce this explosive, powerful, massive beast. Take out just one of the elements and it doesn’t happen. There has to be organization, but how those elements organize seems chaotic to us. Meteorologists have definitely become more proficient at predicting general areas of storms and severe weather, but no one can tell you an exact location a specific cell is going to occur, or exactly what it will do or where it will go after it’s built up. Personally, I think some of my interest in photography was born from trying to understand how severe weather works, but I’m not much closer to truly understanding what’s going on. WLM: As a landscape photographer, how do you find the balance between science & art? Obviously your profession leads you toward the artistic side of the
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