I had been in Amarillo, Texas to see a doctor on a very warm day in May. May and June are the two months of the year when the weather is most unstable. Cooler air from the Rockies comes to meet very warm air from the Gulf of America. They usually meet right where I live, and the result can be very violent storms, as this one was. As I was passing through the very small city of Hereford I could see this system building up, probably 10 or so miles to my west. As I got to this house it was almost fully formed and there was rotation in the storm just to the west. Stopping to make a photograph, series of photographs, it was busy becoming a full blown west Texas toad strangler. I made my photographs and moved on. A few minutes later I drove into the fury of this storm. It had not yet formed a tornado, but the winds were furious and the rain was so heavy I couldn't see to the end of my trucks hood. It did fully form just a few minutes later into an actual very dangerous tornado, in fact I was watching "Storm Chasers" on YouTube and they showed this storm, representing it as an F3 or F4, which would classify it as a killer storm.
West Texas Storm
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You mention Dobrowner, I greatly admire his work. Hope to meet him someday. Plowden is great too. However I don't see Plowdens work as being in the heroic style like Adams or Dobrowner. Mitch's work is very dramatic, while David's work is very quiet and understated, at least that's what I remember, but I haven't looked at his work in several years. Time to revisit.
Nathan McCreery
[Edited]
Hi Nahan! You're right, at least judging by my sole Plowden monograph, that his work does not have that heroic quality and is indeed "quiet and understated". It's the depiction of especially rural USA that made me think of both artists. Somehow, there's a "look" to the landscapes that's just not like Australia.
It is very midwestern. Much of the west in the US is absolutely featureless landscape. Very flat, fertile land. Where there is adequate water you could grow literally anything. Plowden photographs a lot of that type of material; and trains. Grain silos, agricultural type buildings and trains.
Nathan McCreery
[Edited]
Plowden's retrospective, "Imprints" also features more heavy industry - foundries, factories, docks, etc. These don't lend themselves so much to the quiet, understated approach, and his images remind me of one of my favourite photographers, Michael Kenna. What do you think of him? I guess both could be described as romantic.
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Nice work, Nathan! Love the drama. Beautifully composed, as your images always are. This image calls to mind Mitch Dobrowner, of whom I'm sure you're aware. Also David Plowden.