Chasing Tornadoes

Nature, first prize stories

12/6/2003

Tornado chaser Anton Seimon at work. Tornadoes rank among the Earth's most violent natural occurrences, yet no-one fully understands how they work. Chasing tornadoes for science requires skilled forecasts, plenty of stamina—and an ability to get out of the way quickly.

Commissioned by:National Geographic

Location: Manchester, South Dakota, USA

Photo Credit: Carsten Peter

Carsten Peter is a regular contributor to National Geographic magazine, and specializes in going to extremes: scuba diving in a glacier on Mont Blanc, crossing the Sahara on a camel, caving in Borneo. He lives on the edge with his camera, searching for where nature is still pure, and where his survival will depend on his wits and his skills as a technical climber, paraglider, caver, diver, and canyoneer.

Peter is enthusiastically obsessed with devising innovative photographic techniques to capture never-before-seen images from some of the scariest environments on the planet. His many adventures include braving toxic caverns and acid waterfalls to shoot within the deepest ice shafts on earth, rappelling into active volcanoes with turbulent lava lakes and superheated thermal caves, and breaking altitude records while flying his motorized paraglider.

In addition to an earlier World Press Photo award – for his coverage of tornadoes while stormchasing in the American West – he has received an Emmy Award for his videography from inside an active volcano in the South Pacific.