Exclusive! Drawings From Lauren Redniss’s Compelling New Meditation on Weather, Thunder & Lightning Inline

  • lauren redniss thuder and lighting
    Expand
    Photo: © Lauren Redniss
    1/4

    I traveled to the archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic in February 2012. February in the Arctic is very cold and very dark. This is the period of the “polar night,” when the sun does not rise above the horizon. Even at noon, the sky appears twilit, sometimes streaked with pink clouds. On Svalbard, polar bears outnumber people, and reindeer wander around, poking at the snow.

  • lauren redniss thuder and lighting
    Expand
    Photo: © Lauren Redniss
    2/4

    Scientists refer to the Atacama in Chile as the “absolute desert.” It almost never rains. This means footprints and wagon tracks from 100 years ago can appear freshly made. The dryness sucks the moisture from your lips and skin. But once in a while, it does rain, and those rains bring to life long-dormant seeds. Suddenly, the desert blooms with color and life.

  • lauren redniss thuder and lighting
    Expand
    Photo: © Lauren Redniss
    3/4

    How could I resist drawing a picture of Prince Charles and Princess Diana as newlyweds? When the couple visited Cape Spear in Newfoundland, Canada, in 1983, the fog was so dense you couldn’t even see her bright turquoise suit and extra-wide shoulder pads. The drawing appears in my chapter on fog. This was perhaps my favorite section of the book to create: How do you make images of what you can’t see?

  • lauren redniss thuder and lighting
    Expand
    Photo: © Lauren Redniss
    4/4

    This is the etching I made to accompany Craigslist postings soliciting booty calls and romance during recent hurricanes in New York City. Winds picked up, the storm pressed in, everyone wanted company.