We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sara Bruce a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sara, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m more of a hands on, visual type of person in learning how to do something. Photography especially weather photography while storm chasing is definitely not an easy task, let alone just going out there and doing it. When I first started photography my brilliant idea was to buy a starter camera, go out in the middle of the night and try to take lightning pictures with no idea on even how to use my camera nor have the proper tools like a tripod to set up to take the images in the first place. Like most who start out in photography, my images either came out completely white or completely black while I was scrambling through the internet trying out all of the different tips that they offered on multiple websites to take a picture of lightning. Knowing what I do now I wouldn’t have just rushed out to try and take a picture. I think that is the problem with some. They get the equipment, rush out and wonder why the images doesn’t come out the way they want to. There are some days I still have those issues that I’m working on. I would recommend actually paying someone to teach you how to use a camera or even taking classes whether that’s you paying for some classes or those that are free in terms of photography and storm chasing which will take you a long way in terms of learning how to safely and properly to storm chase and photography of the weather. It would have also helped me speed up my own learning process in terms of photography. The skills that’s most important in terms of storm chasing and photography is understanding the storms themselves, knowing your camera equipment whether that’s your phone or an actual camera like it was in my case, and don’t just rush out to where the weather is instead of investing your time to actually learn photography or storm chasing in the first place. The biggest obstacle that’s standing in my own way of learning even more in terms of photography at the moment would be finances as well as actually having the proper computer to learn the editing skills that is needed to process one’s images properly compared to how I’m doing it at the moment. You make do with what you have on hand. So even though they’re obstacles, don’t let that be an excuse as to why you can’t.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

For those who may not know me, my name is Sara, but to friends, family, and even fans of mine, I’m known as the Weather Jinxer Storm Chaser. I’m a one person show when it comes to operating my page in terms of the Weather Jinxer Storm Chaser website and social media pages, as well as I’m a freelancer for Limitless Media with other amazing chasers out there where I provide my services in terms of just videos. I’m actually in my third year of self-teaching myself photography which is definitely not an easy feat for anyone especially since I have cataracts. In the year of 2023, I was a finalists for Weather Photographer of the Year. It still amazes me how far I’ve come in terms of photography, storm chasing, and the amazing people and friends I have met along my journey. I work full time, work 2 part time jobs, married, and take care of 3 amazing kids on top of doing all of this. So, despite there being other photographers out there who do the exact same thing as I do, we’re all unique in our own way that sets us apart. We each have our own goals that we work on and strive towards. I’m slowly working on the photography aspects of storm chasing, and working on towards hoping to help others to achieve those goals as well whether that’s mobile photography or camera photography. It’s one step at a time though in my own journey.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson that I had to unlearn in terms of photography is causing my images to look unrealistic, not natural, and way over the top in terms of contrast while crushing the blacks within an image, that sometimes today, I still have to catch myself to not go back in my old ways in terms of editing images. Everyone goes in stages in terms of how they process images, and if you state you’ve never done that, I’d recommend going back through your old images and compare to how you process images today compared to how you first started to process images, and see the difference. You’d be surprised, and can’t guarantee you won’t question yourself as to why? I finally figured out that I was doing it within my own images when I finally paid someone to do a critique of my own images to see where I could improve in terms of my photography since that is what I was working towards. You just never know sometimes what you do, until you get an opinion from someone else. You take those critiques and lessons and then imply them to your own images to improve them. We all go through multiple stages in terms of photography.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I see this question all the time and trust me it gets asked all the time even in terms of photography and storm chasing on how can you build your audience on Social Media, and even today I sometimes still asks it to my other peers who do the exact same thing as I do to see what their response is, especially for someone who is just starting out. I can tell you for starters on your own social media, don’t compare your own work to others, or dwell on it. If you do, you’re going to deal with FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) or Imposter Syndrome (where you think your work is not good enough compared to others, etc.), if that’s the case, don’t follow those people on social media for your own mental health, it’s not worth it. Follow those who actually inspire you to create. Know what your goals are and work towards those in terms of being creative. Post original work compared to copying other creators out there. Focus on your own work on hand. Other advice is to actually own a website compared to just social media pages to get your name out there. Work on one social media platform at a time, don’t spread yourself out too thin unless you want to set your own self up for failure. Don’t forget the Hashtags. The most important advice out of all of them though is time. Don’t expect to grow big overnight, everything takes time. So just keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll eventually will get there.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.weatherjinxerstormchaser.com/
• Instagram: weather_jinxer_storm_chaser
• Facebook: WeatherJinxerStormChaser
• Twitter: WeatherJinxer
• Youtube: @Weather_Jinxer_StormChaser

Image Credits

Weather Jinxer Storm Chaser