Top 25 photos from Project Vortex 2

[Ryan McGinnis]

I'm going to do a much larger "Vortex 2 2010 retrospective" post like last year, but last night I posted my top 25 favorite photos from both years of Vortex 2 on my blog. Gotta thank the CSWR staff for accommodating me; for a weather nerd like me, getting to shoot Vortex 2 was the chance of a lifetime.

 

[Scott Taylor]

Excellent work and presentation Ryan, thanks for sharing.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

My personal congrats on this incredible stuff, great job, Ryan.

 

[Verne Carlson]

Great stuff Ryan. One correction though - I think you have June 10 Last Chance, Colorado incorrectly identified as June 6th.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Great stuff Ryan. One correction though - I think you have June 10 Last Chance, Colorado incorrectly identified as June 6th.

Thanks for the heads up! Took me over an hour to proofread that whole mess, and still I missed a few things.

 

[Warren Faidley]

Excellent photography... really makes one feel they are there.

W.

 

[Jason Foster]

Thanks for the heads up! Took me over an hour to proofread that whole mess, and still I missed a few things.

Always tough to proof read your own stuff. Another quick correction: June 11th photo with Tim Marshall in the lower right...your text says "left". Also...although I'm sure you saw it already....the telephone line is disconnected. Not sure if you left it on purpose (truth in the stitch) or still want to edit it.

Great stuff. The first few images were already getting that little bit of 'sensation' going that reminds me why I must go back to the plains this upcoming season.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Always tough to proof read your own stuff. Another quick correction: June 11th photo with Tim Marshall in the lower right...your text says "left". Also...although I'm sure you saw it already....the telephone line is disconnected. Not sure if you left it on purpose (truth in the stitch) or still want to edit it.

Great stuff. The first few images were already getting that little bit of 'sensation' going that reminds me why I must go back to the plains this upcoming season.

Thanks -- I'll fix the Marshall bit. I might fix the wire, too; while I try to do as little cloning as possible on stitches, because I don't use a true pano head (I shot that one handheld -- ha!) I'm stuck with parallax sometimes. Here, that's pretty distracting, and definitely not like it was in reality, so I'll go back and fix it.

 

[Kate Pfeister]

Ryan,

Beyond wow.... I always love seeing your work, and this V2 work looks incredible as always...

I'm not really one much for words, but your stuff is friggen awesome....

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Thanks, Kate! Enjoyed your work too, especially the portraiture of the V2 crew and that crazy shot you have of the DOW truck barreling towards that green tornado. Can't wait to see what Jim got out of it, either.

 

[Jason Boggs]

Very wonderful shots Ryan. Definitely something to be very proud of. One question...what lens or lenses and body did you use to shoot those photos?

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Very wonderful shots Ryan. Definitely something to be very proud of. One question...what lens or lenses and body did you use to shoot those photos?

Used three cameras and three lenses. The workhorse was the 50D with a Canon 10-22 -- seems like ultrawide is the way to go with storm photography, and I like using wide for photojournalism. I also had a 20D with a 70-200 2.8 attached to it for the telephoto stuff; that lens is great for candids and for some panoramas. Sometimes I'd attach a nifty 50 1.8 to the 50D for panorama shots, otherwise it sat on an Canon 1N film body that I usually loaded with Velvia.

 

[David Hoadley]

Well, what a great treat Ryan's post was after a long fall pause from Storm Track to work on other projects. Especially, enjoyed the "storm stitching" and enlarging to take a leisurely scan, horizon to horizon. Really brings one back to the plains and begin dreaming about next spring. Thanks for this tonic to the winter blues and other bad news these days. - - - David Hoadley

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Well, what a great treat Ryan's post was after a long fall pause from Storm Track to work on other projects. Especially, enjoyed the "storm stitching" and enlarging to take a leisurely scan, horizon to horizon. Really brings one back to the plains and begin dreaming about next spring. Thanks for this tonic to the winter blues and other bad news these days. - - - David Hoadley

Thanks, David! BTW -- I know Mr. Marshall curated Storm Track for years, but did you actually start it? I read that somewhere, but wasn't sure. I know you contributed to it, I remember as a young teen seeing articles (or was it drawings) by you. If you were the founder, I'll make sure to correct the blog to make note of that.