Mike Olbinski Shoots Brides and Thunderheads

On this episode of Our American Stories, Mike Olbinski didn’t plan on chasing storms. He began by photographing weddings and family portraits in Arizona, but a fascination with weather grew into a second career that takes him into some of the most extreme conditions in the country. Today, he’s known for both his elegant wedding work and his stunning images of lightning and sky. Mike shares how he balances both worlds and what keeps him chasing beauty in the most unpredictable places.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:20):
And we continue with our American stories. Up next the
story of Mike Olbinski, an Arizona based photographer that takes
family photos, shoots weddings, and also chases storm Here is
Mike with how he got into this unique line of work.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
I was like seven or eight. A light and bolt
hit behind your house, and I was outside from the
patty with my dad watching the storm, and I just
remember it still vividly, like it was so bright and intense.
I don't even know if I remember the sound of thunder.
All I remember is I couldn't see anything for like
about like five ten seconds. It was so and that

(01:01):
always stuck with me, and that came back to me.
That memory came back to me when I heard some
other storm chasers talking about why they loved chasing tornadoes.
And when they were little kids, their trailer park with
their with their parents' own got hit by a tornado
and their mom, they said, anyway, got sucked out a

(01:21):
window and then came back in and then jumped on
top of her two boys and was holding them down
on the count or the floor to make sure you know,
they didn't nothing happen to them. And then those boys
grew up into the teenagers, and all they want to
do is chase tornadoes. They were fascinated with them. So
I was like, so that's like a little origin story
kind of a thing that they had, and I'm like,

(01:43):
maybe this was mine because when I was getting into photography,
it was lightning is what I wanted to shoot. That
was the that was what I was looking at online
seeing people take these pictures of light beinging, and I'm like,
how do you do that? I want to do that.
That's amazing. And so that's really what kind of drew
me to I think photography in the first place. But

(02:05):
even after, you know, kind of figuring that out once
I was into it, I was looking back at old
photos of mine from high school and later, and I
have a photo from high school of a really, you know,
kind of crazy severe storm and I couldn't I guess
at the time, I couldn't help. I ran outside with
a camera and took a picture of the storm. And

(02:26):
but that was, you know, when I was like sixteen
or something, and so I think that's always been there.
I just didn't ever realize that was anything I do.
So I was just staring at lightning photos, couldn't believe
people could take those pictures and I want to learn
how to do that. Around the same time, my daughter
was born. She's almost thirteen now, and all I, of

(02:46):
course wanted to do was take pictures of her. And
you know, I had a little dinky point and shoot
camera that could do really close up macro mode, and
so when she was a little baby, I'm just and
they're taking really close ups up her face and her hands,
and I'm like, man, I really like this. This is fun.
And and then I tried to use that and get

(03:07):
picture of lightning and I captured somehow with this dumb
camera this amazing lightning strike right by my house. And
I was like, holy crap, I want to do this.
This is amazing, but I can't do it with this camera.
I need a better camera. And I went home that
night and told my wife Gina, I need a real
camera can do long exposures. This you know, point and

(03:29):
click thing is no good for me. And she was like,
all right, well, let's do it. And we sold all
our DVD like box sets of DVDs we had at
the time that we really weren't watching, but they actually
sold for good money back then on eBay. Was surprising
and made like five or six hundred bucks, bought my
first real camera, and then and then from there it

(03:50):
was you know, taking pictures of my daughter with a
better camera, better lenses, doing you know, you know, cooler
stuff with it, and then getting a little bit better.
We're friends were like, hey, can you just take a
heal Christmas card picture for us? Which is like the
old story that always happens for people get a camera.
And then I started, you know, I'm taking pictures of storms,
and so it kind of all kind of happened the

(04:12):
same time, and you know, I shoot weddings and family
stuff now on top of doing the storms, and so
I still am doing the same thing. I never decided
really anything. It was just more of I want to
chase these storms and capture these images. And back in
the day, I was watching storm Chasers on Discovery Channel,
and that was a big kind of inspiration because I

(04:33):
didn't even know people really did that until I was
watching that, and I was just blown away. I'm like, Wow,
there's people out there that like this as much as me,
and then they drive thousands of miles to chase it.
And at that time I would had been just waiting
for storms around my house, like, wow, I have a
better camera and now I can actually drive out and

(04:54):
try to get closer to storms that are that aren't
right here and increase my odds pictures good King, And
that's really kind of how it started. It just slowly grew,
you know, I just would start going chasing, and then
it also my daughter was also kind of part of it,
because you know, I was starting to go out a lot,

(05:15):
and so, you know, to to kind of justify me
being gone all the time, I would take Lyla with me.
She was a year and a half. She'd watch me.
We's in the back and to give my wife a
break at night, and it was kind of my way
to be able to get out a little more. So
we kind of started doing that together, and then every
you know, every summer, it was just kind of driving
more and more around Arizona. And then at some point

(05:36):
I decided I'm going to go try to chase you know,
a supercellar tornado out in the planes and went out
for one day in like two thousand and nine or
twenty ten, and it was a horrible bust. And then
you know, a couple of days the next year, a
couple of days of the year after and and then
that just all slowly grew. But probably I would say
if there was ever like a conscious decision was in

(05:57):
twenty eleven and July fifth, actually twenty eleven, I had
time lapsed and it was like my third ever time lap,
so I was just practicing kind of, but there's this
monumental apocalyptic wall of dust coming into Phoenix was like
nothing I'd ever seen before. And then I posted that
online like it within an hour or two, and then
it was when viral. It was all across the world

(06:18):
on all the news stations everything. At that moment, I
remember thinking, man, I really love doing this and people
and then people ended up licensing that video for commercials
and all this stuff, and I'm like, man, I love
doing this and I would do it for free, but
here's people paying me for it. And so there was

(06:41):
a decision there that I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna keep
doing this time lapse thing and seeing what kind of
footage I can get and then seeing what comes of it.
And so I just kept doing that and then slowly,
you know, people would see some of the things and
license it. In twenty thirteen, I had another good one
go viral and that's been licensed still license to this day,

(07:02):
and so it was kind of like confirmation that I
had made the right decision. But then I also started
putting all these time laps clips I shot. I started
putting them to music and making little short films out
of them. You know. They started off kind of crappy
in my opinion, but I did my best. But as
time went on, they got better and better, and they
would get they were more popular, and people hadn't really

(07:24):
seen that as much. They would get stab picks on Vimeo,
they would get shared on a bunch of blogs all
over I get them in film festivals and things like that.
So I think a lot of that stuff has been
kind of a progression of just continued. Kind of my
patching board is what really drives me, almost like an addiction.
So I never kind of quit. I just keep going

(07:45):
and going and going. And when I'm out chasing, I
never it's hard for me to ever stop, you know.
I mean, if I'm by myself when there's lightning or something,
I will just keep chasing, you know. And other if
there's people with me, I'm like, I probably got to
go to hotel or I was tired and stuff. But
for me, I just go to the ends of the
earth kind of thing. And so I think, you know,
however my story's been, it's been one of just being

(08:07):
passionate and dedicated to what I do and kind of
just continually proving that all the time. You know, I
just every year it's keep chasing, keep getting footage, keep
putting these films out and kind of being consistent with it.
And so yeah, at some point, you know, I had
have a book published on Amazon and I got I
won an Emmy with a local news station here that

(08:28):
used my footage about five six years ago. So I
got that Emmy. So the verified you know thing on
Twitter and Instagram and all that stuff, you know, was
kind of a result of that. It's been about ten
eleven years now where just trying to be you know,
really consistent, and it's been and as and as I've grown,
you know, myself in my photography and the timeline stuff,

(08:49):
people around the world will have kind of known me
for this kind of thing, like a BBC National lead graphic.
They come to me for things where this year people
are you know, they're trying to get it for a
show and so I'm like a forecaster for them where
I'm guiding you see a TV production, and I was
kind of a guy to forecaster, and a couple of
years ago, Pearl Jam license a bunch of clips from

(09:10):
the stock footage place I use and have all like
a ton of my footage in it, and then they
get a preview a little sneak trailer for it where
they were all on stage playing in the background, which
is my lightning time laps flashy behind Pearl Jam. And
I'm sitting there just going like, this isn't that surprising,
but it's also insanely surprising, and I just can't believe it.
And I'm really really, you know, kind of humbled and

(09:33):
blown away that this ever happened. I Mean, all I
really did was want to just chase storms and take
pictures and I just love it that much, and somehow
this has happened.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
And a great job on the production by our team
who really combined their efforts, Madison, Faith and Robbie, And
a special thanks to Mike Olbinski. And again you heard
it from him. He does take pictures of weddings and
family photos and he loves doing but the real thing
he loves. The passion is the chase, and the chase

(10:04):
of storms. Lighting drew him to photography, storms pulled him
in all the way. The story of Mike Obinski. Like
so many Americans, their passion becomes their business. Their business
is their passion. His story here on our American Stories