David Drufke, Minneapolis photographer, storm chasing, sports, outdoor » Landscape

Horses Under a Stormy Sky

David — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 00:33:52 +0000

Waterfall at River Bend Nature Center

David — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 21:43:03 +0000

This image placed first in a local print competition. It was made in the springtime at River Bend Nature Center. It’s available for purchase at Onsite Minnesota Proofing

Severe Weather Landscape, May 28th, 2011 – Lakeville, MN

David — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 02:33:29 +0000

This photograph was taken in Lakeville, MN of a tornado warned storm on May 28th, 2011.

This print is available at http://www.onsitemn.com/proofing/

Lightning Photographs

David — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 05:22:06 +0000

Here’s a couple of lightning shots from last night. Nothing spectacular, but I haven’t had the chance to do it in over a year, so it was great to get out. It’s so much more relaxing then storm chasing, as it involves a remote release, some lawn chairs, and a beer.

Twin Cities Metro Supercell, May 10th, 2011

David — Fri, 13 May 2011 19:14:09 +0000

So this was kind of an odd day. We had really low expectations, so we planned a few side trips to prevent the day from being a total waste of time if nothing happened. We stopped by North Mississippi Park to check out the Great Blue Heron rookery, and saw a few orioles too. More on that in another post. We headed up to Albertsville, so Kristen could enjoy some shopping, while we waited for storms hopefully might form in the area. Eventually, the storms fired south and west of us, so we picked the southern storm. Here’s a view of it as it approached Buffalo, MN.

Thunderstorm over Buffalo Lake

Unfortunately, the storms kept dying, and we kept hopping southeast from storm to storm waiting for one to take off. Of course, right as we are getting back into the metro loop, a storm near Albertsville (where we started) takes root and puts down a tornado. Eventually made our way to a storm in Eden Prairie. It went tornado warned right over Hennepin County. It took quite the search of the southern side of this larger, semi-split storm to find the updraft. We eventually found a really odd skinny updraft quite a ways away from the precipitation. I wasn’t even sure if it was the updraft of the Eden Prairie storm, or just a little flanking line storm that wasn’t on radar. Eventually, when we got close enough and stopped driving, it became apparently that this skinny little updraft was rotating quite a bit. It had very brief skinny funnels, but of more interest was the rounded base it was developing over Edina. The is one of those storms that produces crazy color. This storm made everything a greenish yellow, similar to the color of a tungsten light bulb.

It seemed to fall apart as it moved further north, but as soon as we got into heavy traffic with no place to stop, it produced a more “serious” funnel off the southwest corner of the base. I’m not sure if it’s the same funnel that people saw “over Lake Calhoun”, but I though we were going to have a bad situation with a tornado touchdown in the metro. Fortunately, the funnel fell apart after a few minutes and the whole updraft seem to being following it’s lead. We continued to follow up up to Minneapolis, where is seemed to be dying in the setting sun.

Moose Falls, Yellowstone N.P.

David — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 22:17:07 +0000

This was our first stop when we got into Yellowstone last September. It was a rainy, dreary day, which is perfect weather photographing waterfalls.

Moose Falls, Yellowstone National Park

Kensington Metro Park, Nature in Michigan’s Urban Core

David — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:40:59 +0000

Interstate State Park, Pictures from the Saint Croix River Bluffs

David — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:37:26 +0000

These were taken from the Minnesota side of the Saint Croix River in Interstate park, near Taylors Falls.

Sanibel Island and J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge Pictures

David — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:48:22 +0000

We really loved the lower Gulf Coast of Florida. We went to Sanibel Island and J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge for a day and saw some amazing things. The most amazing was a bird feeding frenzy, but of course all we had was a crappy Olympus waterproof point and shoot with. We did shoot a little of video with it, that I’m sure we’ll post later.

Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge Landscapes

David — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 21:56:37 +0000

These photos are from the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. These were taken in December 2009 on a few very cold days. Temperatures were around 4° F in the middle of the afternoon. The power poles are from the Black Dog power generating plant. The steam is from the warm water being produced by the power plant.

To purchase any of these images or any other of our winter landscape prints, visit:

http://www.onsitemn.com/proofing/index.php?do=photocart&viewGallery=1629