A digital photographic storybook of clouds, weather and water by Roger Edwards.
F.A.Q.
What is SkyPix?
SkyPix is a purely educational, nonprofit website devoted to sharing my (Roger Edwards’) photos and stories revealing the beauty, majesty and power of clouds, weather and water. Though my images can be licensed privately, this is a noncommercial site and doesn’t have a “buy” button.
What are the legal restrictions and copyright rules?
I’m using two addresses for SkyPix:
The base domain (skypix.photography) and the longstanding skypix.ws redirect. Both work. The skypix.ws URL automatically points to the same place. Any remaining stormeyes.org deep links for the old, low-resolution, pre-2015 SkyPix HTML pages are gone as of January 2022.
I am interested in publishing some of this photography. What are the terms?
Publication requests are handled through a stock agency, Insojourn Design and Images. Please e-mail me (the photographer, tornado dot specialist at GMail dot com) or Insojourn (info at insojourn dot com) for more, and be as detailed as possible about your needs (specific photos, image resolution, publication medium, time window, etc.). We’ll then work together as partners under contract, at rates consistent with prevailing image-licensing practices for professional photography, to optimize your hardcopy or online publishing experience.
Can I use some of your shots in my commercial website, media outlet or business venture for free, for name credit?
Flatly, no. My transportation, equipment and lodging to do photography weren’t free; so the photos themselves can’t be either, if the user’s intent is commercial or for-profit in any way. This includes commercial web and media use. Please e-mail me or my stock agency to license this photography legally and we’ll work together. I’m quite experienced at this, and glad to do so. We also have a longtime (over 25 years experience), professional digital graphics designer at the ready, should you need such services as well.
I represent a school, nonprofit or government agency. May I use your photos on our website?
First and foremost, this gallery exists to educate and inform. Therefore I almost always grant such requests with specific written permission. Please write me with your request, stating the purpose and title or web URL (address) of each image’s page that would be used. If your web URL changes in the future, you must promptly inform me so I can update my records of who is authorized. [I cause unauthorized users to lose their websites, so please inform me of any pirating you may see.] Each web page containing an image of mine must include a working link to SkyPix (skypix.ws or skypix.photography). There must be no alteration or distortion of my imagery without consent, and the copyright notice must remain visible.
I am a student or teacher. May I use your photography for a class project or demonstration?
I am pleased to provide images for this purpose, as long as you write in advance to let me know. Mostly this would be free. However, I may charge for professional time and services rendered, if your request needs more than normal minimal effort to fulfill, or if you have an academic or sponsorship grant that will cover photo-licensing fees.
I am an NWS storm-spotter trainer or WCM. May I download your photography for use in spotter training?
Yes. No advanced permission is required to download my imagery for government, university or nonprofit storm-spotter or weather-safety training purposes only; though I do appreciate knowing if my imagery is used in your spotter or safety talks or classes. The displayed images are of a resolution that will suffice for PowerPoint use, once you click to view. Should you desire higher-resolution or larger versions of any particular image(s) for your training needs, please write.
What is the history of SkyPix and your photography?
I have been observing storms and attempting to photograph them since early childhood in Dallas; but it wasn’t until my first full year in college that I got a 35-mm camera and began shooting slides. At first, I was lousy at it, but got a few lucky shots in the mid–late ’80s that still rank among my favorites. I switched from slides to digital shooting in spring of 2006. Now I take my cameras everywhere I go, whether for work or pleasure. It pays to be prepared; since our sky can reveal its most stunning and mysterious forms at any time! The SkyPix website began way back in 1995 and four domains ago, as a single-page collection of stories linking to 256-color GIF scans (now 16-million-color JPGs) from slides and a few prints.
Starting in 1995, SkyPix was the first image gallery on the Web that I know to be exclusively devoted to a large variety of work by one weather photographer. It also was the first website (to my knowledge) from any photographer, anywhere, to provide GPS lat/lon points for the majority of photo locations. SkyPix has expanded a lot in nearly three decades, and will do so for the rest of my life, as long as there is a “World Wide Web”. The gallery grows continually, as does my passion for the interplay of light, wind and water (in all its forms); hence, added categories like Unusual Weather Damage (2001), Water Works (late 2003), Fog and Mist (late 2006), Burnscapes (2011) and Aerials (2015).
What do the numbers mean after the photo locations?
Those are latitude and longitude. In January 2004 I began adding “GPS” links to the old SkyPix site and including an edited, public-domain, USGS satellite image (courtesy MS TerraServer), covering the spot where I shot each photo. With modern mapping software, I no longer need to undergo those time-intensive steps. Instead you simply get a latitude and longitude for the shooting location in plain text that you can highlight and paste into your favorite mapping tool, to see exactly where I was. Unlike most outdoor photographers, I see no compelling reason to “keep secret” my shooting places—just the opposite, in fact; I want to share the information! As of this writing I am still one of the very few nature photographers in the entire world freely publishing exact GPS points for the overwhelming majority of work. [For the record: I am not interested in debating the merits of that practice, and will keep doing it regardless.] If one isn’t linked, I either haven’t been able to retrace an old location precisely enough yet, or am guarding someone’s property privacy under condition of use.
What does the RADAR link mean at the bottom of some of the photo pages?
That will open a single, four-panel WSR-88D image from the nearest working radar, at about the time of the photo, with my location as red square at the center of each panel. Upper left is base reflectivity, upper right is storm-relative velocity, lower left is spectrum width, and lower right is cross-correlation coefficient (if available for that radar by that year, otherwise no radar data in that panel). Beam elevation mostly is 1/2 degree, sometimes higher if the storm is very close to a radar or lowest-cut data are bad. Scale varies from image to image, but is the same for each panel in a single image. Images are courtesy GRLevel2 software, with radar data from NCEI and Amazon Web Services. I added these links beginning in early 2022 to help meteorologists and lay readers alike relate storm appearance, from the stated distances and directions, to corresponding low-level radar signatures.
Why did you switch to a WordPress site in early 2015?
The old full-circle HTML format, which I lovingly maintained for 20 years, still was visually appealing, got lots of web hits and good feedback, but was very time-consuming to maintain and update. Also, screen sizes have grown such that the old 500-pixel-wide images were too small. Now I use 960-pixel-wide images (when you click on the screen photo). Other advantages of the new format: images are easier to track and upload, the new site is full of metadata and fully searchable, and an image with multiple themes (e.g., Sunset and Mostly Okie Winters) can be placed in more than one category at the same time.
Are there any digital photographs in SkyPix? Film?
Yes to both. SkyPix images from 2006 and onward were shot almost entirely with progressively higher-resolution Canon digital SLR equipment. As phones improve in resolution and low-light capability, I may begin to incorporate a minority of that digital-photography medium as well, for web purposes. Photos from 2005 and before were taken on assorted varieties of 35 mm slide film as conditions and specs warranted. I will occasionally rescan old slides to improve clarity, resolution and representativeness, and upload the improved version here at the new site. If you remember some slides from the old SkyPix site that you don’t find here, be patient; they’ll show up as time permits, better than ever.
Are there any video captures in SkyPix?
Never! Use of freeze-frames from video is a common (and when not explicitly stated, very misleading and deceptive) practice on many pages containing weather “photos,” especially by storm chasers. Not here! I only use actual photographs which I have created using a still camera. Video captures are not photographs.
How authentic are SkyPix photographs? Do you materially alter them (i.e., insert a tornado or lightning where there was none, or substitute a new foreground)?
Absolutely, positively not! A few well-known weather photographers—and many nature photographers at large—have resorted to altering their images, e.g., placing a major feature like a tornado or pretty foreground where there was none originally, or removing a boring part of a shot and replacing it with a more interesting part of another photo. This is getting easier with AI manipulation! I don’t engage in such fraud and deceit—and never, ever will! Falsifying photos or substantial parts of them is patently unethical and dishonest…a bald-faced lie to the eyes, and a diabolical cancer spreading through the art and business of outdoor photography. All SkyPix images were minimally processed from original digital files or were scanned from authentic still photography—no video captures posing as photos, and no swapping out for another foreground or background.
Great! These are real photos and not fakes, so what kind of digital processing is done for SkyPix?
I do edits in Photoshop to remove artifices (stuff not there in the actual scene) such as: dust specks, glare spots, film scratches, unnatural noise/grain, vignetting, excessive light or dark, and for film, off-tones introduced by either the scanner or aging emulsion. The goal of my processing is to be minimal and to make the image can look as close to the original slide or scene as possible. This also is why I do not do crazy “Inga” style color oversaturation, extreme contrast-cranking, or HDR work that make photos look unnatural. The goal of any honest photo processing is authenticity. You can be assured that the image you see is rendered the closest possible to how I saw it through these eyeballs—not oversaturated, overprocessed visual fraud masquerading as photography.
Are all these photos yours, or did someone else take some of them?
Every photograph in this gallery was taken by me with my gear.
What equipment and film have you used for these shots?
Digital SLR bodies are Canon full-frame, ranging from 5D to 5DS and a couple of models in between. Film bodies were Minolta, Pentax and (in the 80s) Mamiya manual SLRs, and of course manual-focus lenses with compatible mounts. As in the film era, I still shoot DSLRs all-manual (focus, exposure, f-stop, ISO setting, etc.) for greatest initial control and lesser post-processing hassle. I use a Bushnell tripod that is still going strong after 15+ years of being blown over in severe inflow to a tornado, dropped down a steep hillside strewn with granite boulders, mounted (and fallen) in the ocean, hit by icebergs, bathed in sulfuric geothermal steam, dislodged from being stuck in hot salt mud, dropped onto concrete in single-digit temperatures, and scraped through volcanic sand. When it finally breaks, I’m getting another like it, and have a backup just in case. I have some ND, GND and polarizing physical filters but most often don’t use them, preferring instead to bracket through exposure ranges and then deploy physical filters only on the most unfriendly dynamic-range situations.
Compared to many outdoor photographers, I am something of a minimalist, by necessity. Many of my shoots occur in rapidly changing and sometimes dangerous weather situations, such as under storms producing tornadoes, painful hail and frequent lightning strikes. Under such duress, I can’t afford to waste time opening and closing things, snapping and unzipping assorted pockets and compartments, or fumbling around with this gear and that. Therefore I prefer to travel light and well-organized, with a couple bodies, a handful of easy-to-swap lenses, memory cards, one tough tripod, and a small pack of easily accessible physical filters. During the last 8-10 years of slide film, my film of choice was (overwhelmingly!) Provia 100F, for its broad-spectrum versatility and unmatched lack of grain. Older SkyPix images (1980s into mid ’90s) also were shot on an opportunistic mix of granier Velvia 50, Sensia 100, Ektachrome 100/200, Kodachrome 64, and (in just a few cases) print film. As phone cameras improve in image size, noise reduction and low-light rendering, I reserve the right to incorporate some of those photos, where preferable in composition or uniqueness with respect to available DSLR shot(s) for a scene. Still, if both well-exposed and sharply focused DSLR photos and phone images are present, I’ll default to the DSLR for what I hope are obvious reasons.