--- description: Photographer Parrish Ruiz de Velasco captured the power of a tornado in Lancaster, Texas. title: Chasing the Texas Tornado image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf6ccb3b5e9117a3c/69879d8aa988cae81e6ae2ae/120416020072_raws.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [LightBox](/tag/time-section-lightbox/) ## LightBox Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Chasing the Texas Tornado  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Apr 4, 2012 9:56 PM CUT  April 3, 2012\. A tornado photographed in Lancaster, Texas. April 3, 2012\. A tornado photographed in Lancaster, Texas.Parrish Ruiz de Velasco  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Apr 4, 2012 9:56 PM CUT Talk about a whirlwind day. Yesterday started out like any other for Dallas native Parrish Ruiz de Velasco. The 21-year-old freelance graphic designer and photographer was headed to work on a carpentry job in Ovilla, Texas, when he decided to ignore his GPS. “As soon as I saw the swirling clouds, I knew it was going to be something cool. I went ahead and took the left turn instead of the right turn, just to chase it down and see if it turned into anything,” he says. “It ended up being a pretty big tornado that unfortunately messed up a lot of peoples’ homes.” Ruiz de Velasco followed the storm for what he estimates to be about 15 miles, up I-35 toward Route 20, getting in front of the storm, before he did a u-turn. As always, he had his camera with him. He took a photo. He didn’t end up making it to work. After submitting his picture to the _Dallas Morning News_ via the paper’s website, the young photographer was called into the office, where he would spend the rest of the evening dealing with requests for the image. By the next day, the picture would have appeared on the front pages of 17 newspapers from the _Wall Street Journal_ and Washington _Post_ to papers in Montreal and Buenos Aires—and it will appear this coming week in _TIME_. “They were pretty mad at me,” he says of his carpentry employers, to whom he had to make excuses on the day of the storm, “until this morning when they saw the newspaper.” Ruiz de Velasco had never experienced a tornado before—and his home and family made it through yesterday unscathed—but he says he wasn’t scared, just excited, an excitement that persists even now that the weather in Texas is sunny and clear. “It was pretty stupid. I had a lot of adrenaline going on,” he says. “It’s the crazy power of nature. I really wanted to capture that.” More: [Tornadoes Rip Through Dallas-Fort Worth Area](http://ti.me/HcvEDl "undefined") _Parrish Ruiz de Velasco is a Dallas-based photographer and designer. Check out his Facebook page_ [_here_](http://www.facebook.com/pages/parrish-Ruiz-de-Velasco-Photography-and-Design/136846541853 "undefined")_._  April 3, 2012\. A tornado photographed in Lancaster, Texas. 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