Statement Big Cloud Series
"In my continuation of exploring subjects in nature that have an ability to illustrate the interconnection of all life on Earth I found myself stalking a type of single giant cloud called a Supercell.
The following images were made in May and June of 2008 in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota. A total of 5,600 miles was driven in just under a ten-day period.
The storms we were chasing were Supercells, capable of producing grapefruit sized hail, and spectacular tornadoes; they were 50 miles wide and reached as high as 65,000 ft. into the atmosphere. These clouds were so large that they had the capability of blocking all daylight, making it very dark and ominous standing under them."
One of the most humbling experiences of her storm-chasing tour, Seaman says, was stopping in Greensberg, Kansas, a city that was leveled by a tornado that killed 11 people in May 2007. When the caravan of storm-chasers would pull into a diner in one of the small towns in Tornado Alley, Seaman says, locals were unhappy to see them, "because it's a bad omen for them. They would say, 'Is it coming this way?"
But Seaman sees the clouds she photographed as more complex than simply a source of destruction. "In that force is also creation," she says. She adds, "Hopefully in my life, that will be the line that goes through everything that I do. I'm really trying in a positive way to show people a connection to their environment."