It was nice to experience, at least some degree of normalcy, for the bulk of the year with no shutdowns or cancelled workshops.
We kicked off the year in March with our usual Astrophotography and Advanced Astrophotography Workshops.. The weather was cooperative, which was great since the astrophotography workshop was our biggest ever with 40 guests (after the 2020 versions were cancelled). We split the guests up into groups of 10, each with a talented workshop leader, then rotated them around independently to maintain an intimate experience. The guests got some incredible shots, while I was busy organizing and posing in the astronaut costume.
Spinning steel wool under the Milky Way and some airglow. March 2021.
Astronaut under the Milky Way at dawn. Photo by George Hamilton. March 2021.
Then it was on to our Texas Bluebonnet and Stars and Wildflowers Workshops. It was really nice to be able to run these workshops after all of them were cancelled during the 2020 shutdown. The historic winter storm which hit Texas in February really threw a wrench into the season, severely limiting the locations which saw widespread blooming. We made the most of it though, finding some awesome spots scouting countless miles on backroads. Thankfully, we were able to find a few excellent locations for each weekend, which allowed the guests to get some tremendous images.
One of my favorite small scenes. March 2021.
Bluebonnets were few and far between but the places that DID have them, were covered. March 2021.
The Milky Way from our Stars and Wildflowers workshop in Marble Falls, Texas. April 2021.
Crested bluebonnet. April 2021.
I found a crested bluebonnet for the first time ever, outside of Vernon, Texas on April 23rd (first day of Tornado Adventures). I’m not sure how many of these flowers I have gazed at in my years but it is more than a couple, so it was a pretty rare find. It was basically a massive bluebonnet, probably 5x the size of the rest around that location. It must have been good luck, because we saw five tornadoes from a supercell nearby that day.
In all, we witnessed 17 tornadoes over seven weeks, while chasing storms across Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana. It was also an incredibly active year with a stretch of 21 straight chase days (usually you get a down day every four or five days).
After a few weeks to catch my breath, the family and I hit the road for our summer workshops. We stopped in Monument Valley before heading to Page, Arizona for our last Arizona Canyons workshop. Lots of covid closures over the summer made things challenging, but we got some incredible shots in Peek-a-Boo Canyon and over Lake Powell. The monsoon pattern forced our Arizona Monsoon Adventure into southern New Mexico, but it was worth it with great photo ops, topped off by an epic lightning storm in Hatch, New Mexico.
This image went low key viral because the lightning looked like a gorilla. July 2021.
Lightning over Hatch, New Mexico. August 2021.
We ended the year with a week of astrophotography workshops in Terlingua. Persieds Meteor Shower, Summer Astrophotography, and Summer Advanced Astrophotography. Weather was brutal over the entire week, but we managed to get a good Milky Way night for each workshop. The desert sent us off with the most intense lightning storm I’ve ever seen in this region on the final night.
Lightning strikes a mountain in BBNP. Image by Savannah Weingart. August 2021.
Intense lightning storm. Terlingua, Texas August 2021
Christmas 2021.
And that was it for workshops 2021. We moved into a “new” 120 year old house at the end of summer, so that has kept us crazy busy. I will spend the rest of winter working on the house and website.
Looking forward to whatever 2022 will bring. Drought numbers look encouraging for bluebonnets and hints of an active severe weather season are forecast.
See y’all in March. Happy New Year!