Furious Skies

About Me

I suppose this section had to be created sooner of later. My name is Jeremy Ludin and I was born and raised in Port Byron, IL, a small suburb of the Quad Cities. Weather has always been a fascination of mine, but mostly in fear. When I was younger, I was absolutely terrified of any severe weather. The only thing I wanted to do was huddle in the basement with my family until it passed. I’m not going to lie, it still does freak me out nowadays, but the only thing I can do today is look at these powerful storms in awe and try to capture them at their most impressive stages. I owe a TON of credit to my brother Josh. He was and has always been the real weather guy in the family. When we were all younger and living under the same roof, I would actually tease him about being so interested in weather for some stupid reason, and that usually resulted in a pummeling. It took me about 15 years to finally realize why he was so intrigued. The ferocious power and raw intensity of a supercell thunderstorm is definitely something to respect. Another person to whom I owe my source of “knowledge” is my buddy and chase partner Joel Wright. He has walked me through many models in the past explaining why or why not the forecast days would be worth anything or not. To this day I still learn many new things from him.

The very first chase I have ever been on was in Galesburg on March 11th of 2006. There were some extremely fast moving storms that day and a hail core ended up racing at us. Surprisingly all my windows stayed in tact. Although at the time I was thinking “uh…….oh, what did I get myself into”, the adrenaline that flowed is something I’ll never forget. I knew from that moment on I’d be hooked. In fact, the very next day my buddy and I set off to Missouri on yet another chase. To this date, that was the longest trip we have taken, but that certainly won’t hold with the upcoming years. To me there is no greater thrill than to throw yourself into the jaws of a beast…on purpose!

I am very much independent when it comes to most things. Sure, I do need people in my life to help me along with many things, and I definitely appreciate the ones close to me, but if I can do something on my own, I’d much rather it be that way. There are a handful of people who are very loyal to me and vice versa, and to me that is pretty much all that matters. I could go on and on about things and thoughts, but this isn’t the area for that kind of stuff. I am a nature lover, but not in the hippy sense. Many people get too caught up with their working lives to appreciate their surroundings and everyday occurrences. There are just too many people who wake up, work themselves to the bone, go home, think about work, sleep and do it all over again the next day. My thinking is that life is entirely too short to enjoy everything it has to offer. I don't want to spend most of my active years behind a computer in the office. I'm the type of person who would pass on a night out in the city knowing I'll have a great time just to be alone somewhere out on the countryside. I'm not too sure if this is a healthy thing or not, but I suppose everyone is different.

I also play semi-pro baseball for the Quad City Shockers. Baseball is something else that is very important to me. Ever since I was a kid and big enough to swing a bat, I have been playing. It is one of my other passions in life and I will continue to play until my body says it has had enough. It is an AWESOME feeling to step out on the dirt on a sunny summer's day for a great game of baseball. I am a die-hard Chicago Cubs fan and I WILL witness a World Series victory someday! Many people look at the game and see it as a pointless, boring waste of air space on the television, but what they don't see is the chemistry and strategies it takes to win. Baseball is a science and it constatnly changes with every pitch. Every single time that pitcher releases the ball, there is strategy taking place both on offense and defense. To figure out every play is to master the game. I have a long way to go!

I am also a HUGE Ulitmate Fighting Championship (UFC) fan. The fights are as real as it gets. I suppose it's more of a masculine thing than anything, but there is just something about watching a fight that really gets the blood flowing. The raw intensity that a championship bout brings is unremarkable. Last year I had the privelege in meeting local UFC champion Tim Sylvia at a local fight. I'm 6'3", 220 lbs. Just how big do you think THIS guy is? He's not a UFC champ by luck.

Photography

The art of photography has been a long time interest for me. It started off as walking around with my old Olympus 35mm film camera, taking pictures of different things here and there. I never really put too much enthusiasm into any of it since I really knew nothing about what I was doing. As the years progressed I would look at many pictures in magazines or on the internet and just be floored by what I was seeing. Like many other things, I thought to myself "now how in the world did they do that?" This thinking broke open a brand new book for me. When I get interested in something that I really want to do, I tend to spend countless hours researching different sources to find my answers. Also, like many other things, the information I was gathering created a chain effect. Once I learned how to do one thing, I was eager for the next, and so on and so forth. To this day I am still doing this. I am someone who is never happy with his work and am always looking for minor flaws and ways to change things for improvement. Once I think that I have finally captured something that will make another person drop their jaws, I do more research to find how other people have photographed something relative to my subject and I'm back to the drawing board. Many people have said to me that they can't see what I see and it looks great to them, but ask any photographer and they will tell you the same things I am. I take pride in my work so I want the end result to be as best as it can be. I think this way over a HOBBY. Now, if I can apply this same thinking to everything else in my life, I'd either have it made or be extremely annoying!

So why do I love photography so much? It freezes time. It captures moments that only occur once in a lifetime. It lets me capture the world around me. My real interest is NOT to create "fine art" prints or anything worth getting published per se, but more to freeze the feeling of the things I see and the atmosphere I experience. It is also very relaxing for me. After a stressful week at the workplace or a longing for something "different", I can always pick up my gear and set off for whatever comes my way. I am actually becoming quite the pessimist, but whenever I head out with my equipment all the negative thoughts and feelings seem to disappear. Has anything ever happened to you that you can think back on and wish you had some pictures? Me too. I still miss the majority of opportunities that happen today. When I'm old and can't get around anymore, it'll be nice to open a book and see everything I have witnessed and have been a part of throughout my entire life.

Equipment

As mentioned before the very first camera I have ever owned was an Olympus 35mm. I can't even begin to tell you what model it was or any other features the camera had. It was just a straight 35mm film camera. I owned this one for many years. There are a few photo albums filled from this camera. If I ever went back to film, I would be completely lost. A few years ago I finally went digital and bought a Kodak CX7525 point and shoot camera. I was REALLY impressed with this camera! In fact, I still own it and always will. It's very handy to take with on fishing trips or anything else. It takes some great pictures and the color generated was astounding. I shot with this camera well over a year and right about that time is when my interested really transformed into something different. Not only was I just generally interested anymore, it was becoming a full-on passion. I wanted/needed more control over my pictures, but wasn't sure how to do it. This is when I first learned about the digital SLR (single lens reflex) camera field. As I have mentioned before, I did many, MANY hours of research and really liked the results I was seeing from other people. I finally splurged and purchased the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT with a few accessories. I first started off shooting in full automatic and was NOT happy at all with the results. I thought I wasted my money and was very close to selling it back on Ebay. I hung on to it for a little bit longer and finally started discovering the "right" way to do things. Since then I feel my work has been steadily improving with every outing, but I know I still have a LOOOONG way to go.

My primary lens is the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM and secondary is the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II fixed. The 50mm is very cheaply built and feels like it could break just by grabbing it too hard, but it produces some amazing results! Other than that, I own the stock Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/2.8-4.5 USM, a Sigma 28-70mm f/2.8 DG and a Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 DG Macro. I have many others on my wish list, but this is one extremely expensive hobby!

Chase Vehicles

...........just kidding. This has been sitting in the same location now for quite a while. I occasionally drive it, but I believe I am going to sell it soon. I had a fog effect filter on when I decided to take this, hence the haziness.

This is my baby, a 1999 GMC Sonoma HighRider. It has been an extremely reliable vehicle, not only just for chases. It's a 4.3 litre V6 4WD. I love everything about this truck except for its massive fuel consumption. This is our primary chasing vehicle and has a quite a few battle wounds already! Hopefully in the not -too-distant future I will be able to equip it with some good electronics to aid our chases.

This is my buddy Joel's 2001 Ford Ranger. It has only seen a few minor chases, but still a very reliable vehicle as well!