Beautiful Footage of Dramatic Cloud Formations Across the American Southwest

For his 40th birthday, Mike Olbinski, a Phoenix-based stormchasing photographer was given the gift of ten days to chase after storms in and around the American Southwest. During the trip, which had been extended to 14 days, Oblinski gorgeous footage of incredible cloud formations and set it to a beautiful soundtrack arranged by musician Kerry Muzzey, creating the short film “The Chase”.

Both chases originated from where I live in Arizona. In April I drove out all night to Colorado, slept maybe an hour, chased all day, got a good night’s sleep, chased the next day in the Texas Panhandle and drove home that same night, stopping only for a quick nap in New Mexico. The second chase was the same. Left Phoenix late on the evening of May 22nd, never really slept and the chase was on the next day. All in all I drove well over 12,000 miles over the course of those two weeks, visited 10 total states (New Mexico, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota) and shot over 45,000 frames of footage for this film.

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Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.