Textbook Imagery!

[Xebadir]

Haha Matt,
Thats a tricky one to answer. At age 5 I saw my first hailstorm (Sydney 1991), Age 7 saw another and was utterly fascinated about the motion within the clouds, the colours and trying to measure the hailstones while they fell (and resisting my mothers attempts to pull me inside)...could explain the process of convection even back then (have a bit of paper framed with my explanation of convection, instability and advection after reading dads pilot's textbook). I was always fascinated to watch storms at any chance i got. Photography started for me when I got given a camera shortly thereafter (we went to North America), and gradually developed, though not taking weather images. Eventually I found out I could study meteorology at uni (though I would say the Supercells of December 2003 in melbourne including golfball hail at home got me reinvigourated), and started chasing storms in late 2004 as soon as I got my licence with my trusty film SLR. Study continued, and I chased the storms when I could, but it wasn't until on top of Mount Cooper in Bundoora while observing a storm that I ran into a guy named Brad (in 08) that the chasing really took off, as we started chasing together, thus dramatically reducing costs for a student (not to mention saving every penny to buy a DSLR). I got a PhD project in severe thunderstorm research (which improved my chase forecasting and understanding massively), the chasing became more and more frequent until pretty much anything within a 500 kilometre radius was considered fair game, a few trips to the states and visiting the storm experts there not to mention seeing a large number of tornadoes and well...the rest is history. Turns out that when I got my DSLR I actually had a bit of a knack for photography, far moreso than most would expect for someone who isn't really very arty but is more science minded (though maybe the physics of light appreciation helps). So can you answer your question now? Its sort of like developing the wheel and axle, but it wasn't until the two were combined that it really started flying along. Either way its been fun, and looks like leading to an awesome career in research.