This is an IHeart podcast. 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's Mike with how he got into this unique line of work. I was like seven or eight. A light and bolt hit behind your house and I was outside

on the patio with my dad watching 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 about like five,

10 seconds. It was so bright. And that 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 parents' own got hit by a tornado

and their mom, they said, anyway, got sucked out a window and then came back in and then jumped on top of her two

boys and was holding them down on the couch or the floor to make sure they didn't nothing happened 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, 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 lightning. And I like how do that I want to do that that's

amazing and and so that's really what kind of drew me to I think photography in the first place but

but 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 a storm. And but that was,

you know, when I was like 16 or something. And so I think that's always been there. I just didn't ever realize that was anything I did. 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 13 now. And all I, of course, want 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.

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