Nature Unleashed

One of the main objectives of my recent Chicago trip besides seeing my daughter was to see the "Nature Unleashed" exhibit at the Field Museum.  My daughter is a photo-holic and just loves using my Nikon D70S, so I loaned her the camera to take a few shots to prove that I was there.  Of course, in today's digital age, I could do this with Photoshop, but I didn't.

"Nature Unleashed" is a tremendous exhibit developed by the Field Museum with a focus on natural disasters and educating people about them.  They tackle topics like tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, and tornadoes.  Naturally my interest was with the hurricane and tornado portions of the exhibit.  And there was one aspect to the tornado portion of the exhibit that blew me away - sorry for the pun.  Professional storm chaser Tim Samaras designed a cone with seven cameras pointing in all directions that he was able to place in front of an oncoming tornado.  So you step into the middle of seven screens and watch the tornado come right at you.  The center of the tornado passed within feet of the cone, so it is about as close as you can get to going through a tornado.  We were so taken with it we went through the video presentation about nine times - it only lasts about 3 minutes.  Unfortunately I cannot show you any photos of the exhibit since they asked that no photos be taken inside the exhibit.

The exhibit is supposed to go on the road in 2009 and might come to Atlanta, but that has not been firmed up.

-Brian-