Pictures of Tornadoes

Back in those days we used film for pictures of tornadoes or any pictures. Like many pros my favorite film was Kodachrome slide film. Paul Simon even had a popular song about "Kodachrome".

I'd say it marked the end of the film era when Kodak stopped producing Kodachrome a few years ago. I felt sad, much like I felt when I learned that the Winchester factory closed it's doors.

On this day I was not out hunting pictures of tornadoes. I was a professional photographer but also working as a traveling salesman to keep food on the table. I was in a recession, (tough times) and much of our country was in it with me.

I kept an old Pentax K1000 loaded with Kodachrome 64 under the car seat. The K1000 was a camera without any automatic functions.

With many cameras of that time you used an "educated eye" along with the camera's simple match-the-needle exposure meter to set the f-stop, and the shutter-speed for a proper exposure.

Heading home late one spring afternoon the clouds were dark and the radio was issuing tornado warnings. Living in Oklahoma, I'd seen a few twisters, I respected them, but it was nothing new.

I was a few miles west of the small town of Custer City, Oklahoma. When I topped a hill I could see a huge tornado forming in the distance. It was not a little "rope" like most, this one was big! Good pictures of tornadoes could be worth some money.

It was getting away! I left my salesman job behind and my photographer's foot pushed the accelerator to the floor. I turned the Chevy down a little dirt road and gave chase. When I topped a hill and saw the old fence and windmill I slid to a stop.

I grabbed the Pentax, jumped out, and quickly framed the scene. Pictures of tornadoes are not unusual, but I thought this scene could be classic. The light was flat, mostly grey, I trusted the already centered exposure meter for my first shot.

I planned to shoot as many different exposures as rapidly as possible. But when I tried to wind the film... it wouldn't wind, the counter read number 37, and it was a 36 exposure roll of film.

With most 35mm cameras of that era you had to manually wind the film back into the cassette. It took me a little time, even working furiously to load a new roll.

The big twister was gone... back up into the cloud... I only got one shot! I thought back over everything in my mind... flat, even, grey light, the meter was centered... the shot should be good.

When I sent the film to Kodak for processing I put a note with the film: "The important shot is on the end of the roll. Please process every inch of this film."

In about a week the Kodak mailer came back by snail mail. I was very excited to see my great tornado picture. I quickly found slide number 37, the lab had processed it, but it was totally black... opaque.

The other shots were fine, but not the one I wanted. Disgusted, I threw it in the trash, and went to look at the camera! I found the camera's exposure meter needle stayed centered no matter what I did. The camera's battery was dead!

On my other cameras when the battery went dead the meter needle dropped to the bottom. The Pentax stayed centered, so I'd only thought it was indicating a good exposure. I'd greatly underexposed the shot!

I dug the slide out of the trash and held it very close to a powerful light. I could see a "whisper" of an image. I dug out the slide copier and went to work.

Using my most powerful flash as a light source, I copied and recopied the shot. When that film was returned I could see it but it was still too dark. I recopied those copies.

After about a month, repeated generations of copies, I had a reasonable exposure. The underexposure and duplication caused the color to shift greatly.

Even with the color "off" I still made and sold a few large tornado pictures. Many years later I remembered my old tornado pictures, and scanned them into digital form. It's much easier for to adjust the color on the computer.

I've lost track of how many times the original shot was duplicated. With the digital technology, I've finally been able to make these pictures of tornadoes look like what I remember.

I love digital cameras and all the things you can do with relative ease today. I started using digital as soon as it was comparable to film in quality. Today film is almost history. There are some misconceptions about photography and I hope to write more about cameras and photography in the future.

There are many good cameras, but this is a newer version of mine. Click to shop!

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