A young man from Nanchang drove 27,000 kilometers to take photos of super thunderstorms. Why did he choose to be a thunderstorm photographer?
A young man from Nanchang drove 27,000 kilometers to take photos of super thunderstorms. Why did he choose to be a thunderstorm photographer? Let's discuss this issue below, hoping that this content can help friends in need.
Liu Yijing was born in Jiangxi and has had a strong interest in meteorology since he was a child. When he was 2 years old, his mother, who was engaged in modern agriculture, bought him many science picture books, and he was fascinated by the one about systematic climate. He often asked his mother to read it many times. By the time he reached kindergarten, every page of the book had already been turned over.
From then on, watching the weather forecast from "Xinwen Lianbo" became Liu Yijing's daily compulsory course. Although he had not yet understood severe convective weather, he occasionally saw it on the TV. He could cry and laugh for more than ten minutes even with the "sleet" sign. When he grows older, every time he hears thunder and lightning, he will rush to the window as quickly as possible to see the thunder and lightning and the heavy rain. Sometimes, he will not realize until everything is over that he is bruised and bruised by the wall or the corner of the table. One piece.
After entering junior high school, this obsession gradually turned into a search for meteorological knowledge. He has joined many QQ groups of meteorology enthusiasts, read books such as "Principles of Weather" and "Basic Principles and Technical Methods of Severe Convection Weather Forecasting", and browsed hundreds of meteorology graduation thesis. He even made friends with many professionals from the local meteorological bureau. Sometimes they held seminars and he would be invited to participate.
At that time, Liu Yijing was passionate about being a weather forecaster, but unfortunately he was not satisfied. Just before the college entrance examination, he suffered from obvious chronic gastroenteritis. Unwell and unable to teach normally, and the admission score for the atmospheric science major was generally high, Liu Yijing was at a loss. "I knew this road was cut off, so I was very unconfident and depressed. Bad mood was harmful to the human body, and I ended up falling into a vicious cycle."
The only thing Liu Yijing did not choose to give up during that period was Learn meteorological knowledge. He made an account and took pictures of the unique clouds or thunder and lightning he saw in Nanchang with his mobile phone to make simple scientific records. On March 15, 2018, when he was studying an old SLR from 2012 at home, multiple lightning bolts suddenly appeared about three kilometers outside the window. With a wide field of vision and no obstruction by precipitation, Liu Yijing took photos of more than a dozen works with thunder and lightning hanging in the air. He posted it online and got the first million views, and the next day the photo appeared on various local news media and the China Weather Network.
Liu Yijing’s interest in photography was ignited. In 2019, as a sophomore in college, he officially started learning photography. He tried taking pictures of burning clouds, sunrises and cloudscapes. In the summer of 2020, he chose to be a professional storm videographer.
"Everything is highly variable. I'm worried that I have invested time and money but got nothing. This is also true. Not every Seven Poisons can be successful." becomes A storm photographer requires not only comprehensive meteorological knowledge and photography skills, but also excellent outdoor survival skills. This is not a new position overseas, but few people have tried it in our country.
On August 1, 2020, he went to Hulunbuir. Just when the arc-shaped clouds on the grassland were pressing down on him like a wall, he felt that his fear and work pressure had disappeared. He found a passion for life again, just like when he saw a storm when he was a child, he would shake his head. He felt majestic and then peaceful.
In Ulanqab on August 9, 2020, Liu Yijing took photos of more than a dozen high-quality storms and was preparing to pack his equipment back to Hohhot. Just when the sun had already set and it was still dark, a group of developing light purple thunder and lightning cells appeared in the deep blue sky. It quickly grew into dense mane-cumulonimbus clouds that exploded overhead, with thunder and lightning appearing like the texture of pottery in a patch of mammalian clouds. Liu Yijing was so excited that he quickly pressed the quick release button to capture this rare scene.
At this moment, a nomad left and came back. When Liu Yijing said that he was filming a storm, his expression changed immediately. He cried and said: "Cameramen like you need to come back and take more pictures of everyone! Do you understand how serious the storm this afternoon was? The crops that have been planted for a year could have been harvested, but they were all destroyed by hail." ! And the windshield of my tricycle was broken."
Liu Yijing's mind went blank in an instant. He didn't know how to answer, so he returned to his hometown of Nanchang. For two whole months, this incident stuck in Liu Yijing's heart like a thorn. "I just wanted to simply shoot the storm, but I never thought that what I liked would be a disaster for some people." Liu Yijing said, "I feel that I built the joy of writing on the pain of others, so For a while, I felt guilty.”
He chose to do something, firstly to find peace of conscience, and secondly, to help more people master meteorological knowledge and avoid possible flood disasters. On December 19, 2020, Liu Yijing marked the "arc-shaped cumulonimbus" in a Douyin video for the first time. On August 10, 2021, he went abroad for the first time and explained the United Nations intergovernmental climate change by oral broadcast. The latest weather report from the Panel on Change.
In the video, he first summarized that what he gained this year is the result that usually ten years of struggle may not be able to obtain. "It can be explained that the feeling of taking pictures is getting bigger and bigger." , the more serious the severe convective weather will be." At the end of the video, he made this call: "No matter what, we will face a situation with high incidence of severe convective weather in the future. It is imperative to resist global warming. The earth is ours and everyone cannot protect it." Indispensable home 3, I sincerely hope that everyone can contribute their own energy to save energy, reduce consumption, and protect the ecological environment."
Liu Yijing finally found the path of science. "Why are the heavy rainstorms in Shanxi so strong?" "What exactly is La Niña?" "How are sandstorms generated and how to defend against them?" Since then, Liu Yijing has combined news reports to analyze the causes and consequences for netizens many times.
Liu Yijing found that the content that more people liked or made sense was just like his original intention of choosing to be a storm photographer, not only to find beauty, but also to find the meteorological background. of humanized service and self-worth. He truly became a storm chaser.
Based on the analysis charts calculated based on live weather information and various data, he will divide an area of 3 to 500 square kilometers where the storm is likely to occur three to five days in advance. He would then pick a transfer city and contact a local driver. Most storms occur in the evening or night. Liu Yijing usually arrives at the destination one night early, and then uses the next morning to prepare emergency equipment such as dry food, water, and tow ropes. In the car, he needs to observe the weather cloud map and radar detection data on the computer at any time and anywhere to adjust the driving route. Sometimes the analysis is not accurate enough, and the storm may be off by two to three hundred kilometers, which may also make him unable to Hiding everywhere.
An even more dangerous experience was in the vast grasslands of Inner Mongolia. In order to take pictures of the detailed scene of arc-shaped clouds and wind blowing in front of the supercell lightning, Liu Yijing stayed until the last moment. He didn't expect the wind to be so fast. When he saw the wind and sand blowing dozens of meters high on the prairie city skyline, he had no time to put away his equipment. He could only desperately hold on to the luggage rack on the roof of the off-road vehicle to prevent himself from being blown away. "The energy of the wind was so strong that for a moment I felt a huge sense of loss of consciousness and anxiety. I even wondered if I was going to die."
"I can't just show the beauty of nature, It should also return reality and convey knowledge through images. It does not necessarily have to convey multi-disciplinary knowledge, but at least it should allow everyone to have a certain defense when seeing a certain type of cloud or a certain situation, rather than seeing it. It happens," Liu Yijing said.
On June 25 last year in Inner Mongolia, Liu Yijing took a picture of a very magnificent fire-baked mammatus cloud at the edge of a storm. At that time, he thought that the city below must have suffered a serious hail disaster. The second On the highway that day, he saw a car with dents all over its body from hail. At that moment, Liu Yijing had mixed feelings: "Why did the storm attract me to take pictures? Because it has a kind of blue-realistic beauty, but this kind of beauty has extreme lethality. I have the responsibility and obligation to tell everyone." "
In Liu Yijing's view, the accuracy and timeliness of China's weather monitoring are gradually improving, but many people still don't care about it. "So another significance of my account is to remind everyone that the storm is not very close to our lives." Liu Yijing calls his efforts on Douyin "new science." "Getting traffic and embedding knowledge through the stunning interface is much better than the forced transmission of text and pictures in the past. And combining the vivid image examples to convey the knowledge to more and more people is also our greatest sense of self-worth." area."
In May 2022, his work appeared on the cover of the column of the SCI journal "Progress in Atmospheric Science". In September last year, he gave an academic report on meteorology at Peking University. He became a collaborative photographer with the China Climate and Foshan Tornado Research Center, and some academic research organizations also initiated cooperation projects.
Liu Yijing said that this kind of video not only has scientific value, but will also be beneficial to scientific research in the future. "Previously, scientists' analysis was mainly based on weather cloud images, radar images and some data from weather stations, but if it can be combined with actual interfaces, it is possible to discover or confirm some theories."
Liu Yijing firmly believes , the storm shooting will definitely generate higher popularity in the future, but for now, he is unwilling to make too many preparations for the future. The experience of chasing storms has long given him a good attitude far beyond his age. He said: "Since there is a situation where nothing is captured after chasing a thousand kilometers, then there will definitely be situations where the prediction is exceeded. The key is that you have to stay on the road, do everything you can do now, and walk the path that can be seen with the soles of your feet.
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