Chasing Weather is an award-winning book. It is a Finalist in the Midwest Independent Bookseller Association’s Choice Award for poetry, and was also a Midwest Connections pick! Plus, the book was selected a Kansas Book Award Winner for the 2014.
“The sky is made of rivers before and after they became rivers,” Caryn writes in Chasing Weather. Weather subtly shapes our days, infuses our moods and interactions, and at times, completely re-orients our lives. Catching moments of stunning beauty and surprising shifts in the sky helps make the vibrant and variable world more visible to us, and shows us how to truly see where and who we are.
Very nice article on storm chaser Stephen Locke in the Kansas City Star
Praise for Chasing Weather
“This ravishing call and response between a fearlessly roving artist-with-a-camera (Locke) and a lyric laureate of the heart’s workings under Kansas heavens (Mirriam-Goldberg) is both glorious and intimate. Wonderfully illustrating the dynamism and vastness of prairie skies and prairie soul, Chasing Weather is a volume to treasure in these stormy times.”—Stephanie Mills, author, Tough Little Beauties and Epicurean Simplicity
“The photographs are tempest wars, but a war of flowers and silence and color and God’s calling his/her poems out over the land. And the poems are silver threads that weave through the darkening sky and gates and light unspooling from the heart’s loom a dream of joy and ancestral echoes.”—Jimmy Santiago Baca, author, A Glass Of Water and Singing At The Gates and founder, Cedar Tree, Inc.
“What a beautiful book, a gorgeous pairing of photos and poetry! These images are at once alluring and startling, awe-inspiring and terrifying—the joining of heaven and earth. Chasing Weather unlocks the power of nature on the Great Plains—the ever changing, fascinating drama of the sky.”—Mary Swander, Poet Laureate of Iowa, author, Farmscape: The Changing Rural Environment
“When the poems in this book, billowing among images that take my breath, say ‘the sky is made of rivers before and after they become rivers,’ and ‘the sycamore buds into tomorrow,’ savoring ‘the threat to come and the yearning to plant,’ I am swept away like a leaf before the storm. I pity people who don’t know a sky like this, who don’t have these words of electric insight, spoken true, blessing the open country at the mercy of the storm.”—Kim Stafford, editor, Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems by William Stafford
“Being a native Kansan, I thought I had a clear image of what stormy, tornado-ridden skies looked and felt like, but after seeing Stephen Locke’s astonishing, almost surreal photographs, I realize how much I had missed. Coupled with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg’s lyrical, other-worldly poetry, the photographs come to life and suddenly I can see my beloved Heartland in a whole new way.”—Kelley Hunt, singer/songwriter, The Beautiful Bones
“Mother Nature’s ever-changing mood often leads to a paradoxical juxtaposition of fury and tranquility on the Great Plains. For the photographer, that moment of perfection can last but a fraction of a second. Stephen Locke possess that unique blend of passionate dedication, preparedness, extreme patience, and a keen eye, capturing nature’s balancing act in a way that many try, but few succeed. Well done!”— Evan Bookbinder, Meteorologist, Information Technology Officer at US National Weather Service
“I always marvel at the beauty of Stephen Locke’s photos and have long described him as somebody whose soul is in the right place. To have his images combined with poetry and with the stories behind them is a rare treat, not to be missed. The book is glorious!”
—Jenna Blum, New York Times bestselling author, The Stormchasers
“If you’re looking for some of the most artistic and breathtaking atmospheric moments captured on camera from across the Heartland of America, look no further—this book is chocked full of some of Stephen Locke’s most fabulous work. You will not be disappointed.”—Jesse Risley, Educator and Storm Chaser
“There are storm photographs, and then there are Stephen’s storm photographs. He sets the bar for artistic captures of epic weather events. I’m stunned by each page, reminded of that eerie calm, yet energized silence just before the crack of lightning. The poetry introduces poignant elegance into the calm before the storm. A fantastic combination!”—Kevin Sink, Fine Art Landscape photographer
“Stephen’s images are themselves poetry, powerfully revealed through his gentle perspective of the natural world.”—Heidi Farrar, storm chaser/photographer, Tornado Chasers Documentary Series
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is the 2009-2013 Poet Laureate of Kansas, and the author or editor of 19 books, including the recently published Poem on the Range: A Poet Laureate’s Love Song to Kansas; The Divorce Girl (Ice Cube Books); a non-fiction book, Needle in the Bone: How a Holocaust Survivor and Polish Resistance Fighter Beat the Odds and Found Each Other (Potomac Books); The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community & Coming Home to the Body (Ice Cube Books); and four poetry collections. Founder of Transformative Language Arts – a master’s program in social and personal transformation through the written, spoken and sung word – at Goddard College where she teaches, Mirriam-Goldberg also leads community writing workshops widely. She lives with her family just south of Lawrence, Kansas, where the deer and the turkey roam. www.CarynMirriamGoldberg.com
Stephen Locke is a Director of Photography and professional storm chaser. He produces motion and still photography for business and private collectors. Based in Kansas City, his Tempest Gallery is a showcase of storm imagery shot throughout the Great Plains. Stephen is also well known for his time-lapse cinematography. Clients include Andrews McMeel Publishing, Accord Publishing, CBS, Mayo Clinic, The Weather Channel, Discovery, Severe Studios, and TornadoVideos.net. His specialty as a photography is weather and storm chasing although he also has extensive experience and expertise in family portraits, weddings, classic black and white, gardens, weddings, and other areas of interest. He has supported himself through his weather photography and portraits since 1984. His vimeo website draws thousands of views as does his website.
www.TempestGallery.com
www.StephenLocke.com
Vimeo