I’m a Storm-Chasing Adventure Photographer. I Live for Heart Explosions

I started storm chasing back in 2018. I remember the first afternoon of heading out, we left Dallas Airport and went into the Texas Panhandle and entered this intense dust storm. I knew within the first hour that I’d be hooked and that I had to do this.

When you stand in front of one of these storms, the emotions are instant. I’d been exposed to so many adventure and adrenaline sports over the years. Storm chasing made a connection with my personality.

Ever since that first dust storm, whenever it’s feasible I try to chase the American Midwest every spring. When you’re up close to something like a tornado, you feel the absolute awe of Mother Nature.

Tornados are fascinating. We still don’t have a full understanding of how they form. It’s only in the last couple of seasons that researchers have started to prove certain theories of how tornados are constructed.

And I can assure people: It doesn’t matter how much you see these weather events on a screen or in a movie, nothing ever compares to seeing it in real life.

At first, I thought if I see a tornado from far away then I’d be super happy. But then you see one, and you start thinking: I want to get closer. But only to a certain degree.

The “Heart Explosions” episode of National Geographic’s PHOTOGRAPHER series focuses on my life and career. And in that episode, you see fellow storm chaser Nick Moir and I hunting down a tornado. It was the closest I’ve ever been to one.

The distance was perfect because you could still see the whole system and watch it form. And I think if you get too close, you start to lose some of that cool detail.

It’s moments like that that I call “heart explosions”. The reason I use that phrase, apart from the joy you feel, is that in these intense moments you don’t have control over how you react. They feel so raw.

I just love to find those moments. It’s one of the best things in life to do. But it’s also about documenting what you’re seeing in front of you. Documenting these storms visually contributes to the science.

Back in 2013 was the El Reno tornado. It was huge, with a rating of EF5, the highest on the scale that measures these weather events.

Unfortunately, it took the lives of a few storm chasers. But because there were so many chasers out there collecting all the visual data, scientists were able to piece together what the tornado did that day: An unexpected 180-degree turn, which caught everyone off guard.

So I’m fuelled by my personal experience and wanting to be in these intense raw moments, but also a desire to document and capture these events to develop a better understanding of the environment that surrounds us.

With adventure, though, there’s also danger. During a trip to Pakistan, I learned the classic lesson of trusting your gut instinct. In 2011, I joined some friends who are world-class Red Bull paragliders, and they wanted to break the world altitude record.

At the time, I was just so hungry for adventure, but also to get off the grid and feel like I was out in those extreme environments.

I was young and still pretty early on in my photography career and, six days out from the end of the trip, I think I was so focused on the feeling that I had to capture the imagery.

There was a morning when things weren’t adding up. I had started before the athletes to hike to the takeoff, which was always about a good two-hour trip. I remember when I got to the takeoff thinking: That’s weird, I thought they’d be behind me by now.

But we also had a filmmaker team trying to capture motion, so they had slowed things down tremendously that morning anyway. They finally got there hours later.

At that point, warning bells should have been going off. But I was like: It’s fine, we’ve got six days left so I have to get up no matter what.

One of the athletes was so frustrated. He’s just got to take off, which actually ended up being a blessing in disguise.

Meanwhile, I’m getting ready with the tandem pilot. We’re dressed to go to 7,000 meters, basically like we were going to the Arctic because it’s so cold up there. We’re just standing, waiting for the winds and sweating.

Once we launched, everything went wrong within seconds. Rather than running down and simply gliding away from the hill, we ended up careening left. My pilot had tripped over behind me, and he had grabbed the wrong brake chord.

Next thing I knew, I remember looking down on my feet going: Oh God, they’re off the ground.

I look up and see the huge rocks in front of us, and recall that last moment of going: Ah, s**t.

Then we hit the hillside. I was knocked out.

I had a range of injuries. There was blood everywhere. I was hiked off the mountain for a couple of hours, and then taken by road for several hours to a military hospital for treatment. I could have died.

I look back on that day to analyze and learn from it because I know I’m very lucky. Things could have gone a very different way. But there are so many signs that day that I shouldn’t have flown. I should have trusted a gut instinct that things just weren’t right.

I’ve taken that lesson into future trips. I remember being in Alaska in the Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve, and the conditions were just absolutely terrible.

Finally, on day nine out of a two-week expedition, I spoke to the team and I said: “You know what? I’m actually just not having fun. I don’t even want to be here.”

Thankfully, some others agreed with me and we decided to pull the pin. It was one of the first times I had the courage to walk away because it’s easy to think: Oh gosh, I’ve spent all this money. We have sponsors. We have all this expectation.

But at the end of the day, the simple question to ask is: Am I having fun? And if I’m not, then what is the actual reason that I’m here?

Hindsight is a beautiful thing. When you look back on incidents like what happened to me in Pakistan, I can pick out so many things that were going wrong. But when you’re in the moment, you just can’t see it.

We were on a BASE jumping expedition at Baffin Island, Canada, for a month. The first two weeks, my gosh—we were spoiled with good weather. I wish we knew to have made the most of it, and to appreciate it. Because the last two weeks we were stuck in blizzard after blizzard.

I started to get a little base camp fever. Any breaks in the weather and of course we would be screaming to get out of there to do something.

On the day of the incident with my friend Jim Mitchell, I remember we were hiking to a different jump, but when we looked up we saw this low cloud rushing in so fast. A few of us decided: Oh hell, there’s no way this is going to be jumping conditions, so let’s bail.

A few of us bailed while the others kept going. They ended up having perfectly fine conditions. But for the rest of us, we were wondering about this other place that should be protected from the winds.

I didn’t know at the time, but Jim had spoken to the expedition leader to voice not wanting to be on the trip anymore. He wanted to go see his family sooner.

That, to me, is one of the biggest indications that his heart really wasn’t in the trip anymore. But because he was one of the most experienced jumpers, I think he felt the pressure of: No, I should stay. I guess he felt like someone who everyone was looking up to.

Jim jumped that day and disappeared. We couldn’t find him. And we never saw him again.

Ultimately, we know that when we go to these places we are taking a risk and things can go drastically wrong. So when things do, it’s hard to process and accept.

It was a big lesson and a warning. I continue to live this lifestyle and be in extreme environments, and I try to make the best decisions I can and to be acutely aware of what’s going on around me.

But at the end of the day, Mother Nature reigns supreme and there is always spontaneity we can never predict. That can be dangerous and tragic. It can also bring about some of the best experiences.

I was freediving off the coast of Pico Island in the Azores. We were there for 10 days and the goal was to try and capture images of sperm whales.

About a week into the trip, we had no luck. Sometimes we were out in the water for 12 hours and every time we jumped in, it was like a big magic trick: How could a creature so big disappear so quickly?

But finally, at the weekend, there was a day that we came across eight sperm whales, and our guide at one point said it was time to get in the water.

I saw them, and they started to swim down. I thought: You know what, I’m just going to enjoy this experience and not even bother with the photo.

But in that group of eight, three split off to the right and five to the left. I watched the ones who went to the left, and they kept going left and left, and the next thing I knew they’d done this huge circle, and then they were coming back towards us and started to ascend.

I began to take photos, but I’m also watching. The five of them were rubbing up against each other, so they’re obviously in a very playful mood and curious. They get closer and closer, and I remember sucking in my belly because I felt like the fin was that close to me.

I was looking into the eyes of one of them.

When we came back to the surface, it was a classic heart explosion moment. I just started screaming in pure joy. I had no control over it. I just wanted to scream. I couldn’t articulate that moment and I don’t think any of us could speak for about an hour.

That is one of the draw cards for me: Interaction with wildlife.

Wildlife will dictate when that happens. I wish everyone could experience what that’s like. It’s incredibly special when wildlife chooses to engage with you.

I’ve definitely tamed down my travel in the past few years. Obviously, the pandemic changed a lot of us. With travel, it’s always going to be a part of me, but I try to be more selective because I’ve come to appreciate having a home rather than being a Nomad and living on the road.

But I’d be pretty sad if I had to stop this lifestyle because perhaps I’d have lost that curiosity or willingness to keep exploring. I still love being curious about nature and the world around us. I don’t think that will ever change.

Krystle Wright is an adventure photographer who pushes her body to the limits to capture images in extreme situations from free diving, rock climbing, base jumping in the arctic, storm chasing and more. Her work is the subject of National Geographic’s series PHOTOGRAPHER, and can be seen in the episode “Heart Explosions”.

All views expressed are the author’s own.

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