Scary Pictures? Make yours freaky!

[Tom Stefanac]

Every picture of a tornado before 1986 seems to look almost scary.

Take Elkhart, IN for example. Sure, that is a dramatic picture but if this was taken with modern film or a digital cam would it have been as scary? Probably not!

This next tornado which I know nothing about looks really mean and scary even though it is just dust and dirt.

The 1981 Cordell tornado is my favorite but it looks so much meaner on 8mm than it probably would on DV.

Even tornadoes in other places look mean, 1946 Windsor ON Tornado. I think it was rated F4.

I think the answer as to why these tornadoes were so scary would almost definitely have to do with optics and lighting. The older film tended to have far more contrast than your eyes naturally did. This combined with B/W coloration and grainy effects as well as possible blurring is probably what makes everything so much more dramatic.

With that in mind I am wondering if anyone can make a tornado picture they like look worse than it really is/was, you know, give it that old scary feel. I would be really interested to see what people could come up with.

I did a test with the 1987 Edmonton tornado. The original image was borrowed from http://www.ece.ualberta.ca/~rob/tornado87.htm . Removing the tones and enhancing the contrast made a good deal of difference!

 

[Jeff Lawson]

 

[Karen Politte]

ROFL.....

Manchester, 1903

K.

 

[Gabe Garfield]

Personally, I think they looki just as scary in color (if you're in the path!). LOL

Though, really, I think that they look scary because B&W brings out the darkness of tornadoes, which I suppose is pretty scary.

Gabe

 

[Susan Strom]

The Cordell tornado has always been my favorite too.

 

[Doug Raflik]

Attica, KS May 12 2004

The "other" Happy tornado.

 

[Brian Stertz]

May 4, 2003

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Brian, is that the tornado that hit Franklin KS or is that up by KC? If it is do you have the origional you could post? My best friends house was destroyed by that monster.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

I've been wanting to do this with tornado photos of mine for a while - because it touches something submliminal that exists in all of us ... personally, this is why I feel this is:

The Wizard of Oz was one freaky movie as far as the collective 'psyche' toward tornadoes is concerned.

Here's Tim Marshall's article on the subject: http://www.stormtrack.org/library/fringe/oz.htm

I'll work on some of mine later - - -

 

[nickgrillo]

Flint, MI F5 June 8th 1953 :blink: :huh:

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Here's one I tried to 'freak up' a bit. Someone who got the El Reno anticyclonic tornado should 'scare' one of their photos out, because that one reminded me of the Oz twister. It would look cool if someone aged it ...

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

El Reno, OK from the other day after a few minutes of playing around.

 

[Jason Boggs]

Tornado near Medicine Lodge, KS on 5/12/04

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

I thought Jeff's from the 24th was a good candidate:

(The photo is copyright Jeff Snyder, not me, so I'll gladly remove it if he wants me to)

 

[Mike Peregrine]

The photos in this thread are pretty dang cool ... and scary. I love it ... even though I'm sure the tornado photography purists are probably squirming right now.

If you look at the example photos in the first post - the ones that really did age over time - there is some variance in tone/color that comes with aged paper - they are no longer true black and white for the most part, but most have a yellowish or bluish color cast to them that appears desaturated. Karen's is neat because its sepiatone appearance really makes it look like it could have been taken a hundred years ago, as does Ryan's rendition of Jeff's photo.

Aaron's photo of El Reno blows me away - as every photo I've seen of that tornado so far. It just looks so dang cool. It should be put on the Oklahoma state flag or on the back of the Oklahoma quarter or something. Anyway - hope this doesn't step on Aaron's sovereign right to artistic license, but I did some more playing around with it just for fun (can also be taken down at AK's request, of course) ... that's just one scary-looking mama jama.