For everyone whose idea of danger on a shoot is enduring a hissy fit from the director, consider the typical work day of cameraman/storm chaser Mike Theiss. As one of the busiest and most renowned documenters of extreme weather (ice storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, tropical storms), the Florida Keys native and Weather Channel videographer has dodged lightning strikes and toppling trees, driven in hot pursuit of funnel clouds, and endured storm conditions that have leveled communities, all with the camera rolling.

Most recently, his intense, widely-viewed footage of Hurricane Katrina from flashpoints in Florida and Mississippi has been acquired by National Geographic Digital Media, and material from the scores of other disturbances he has shot is available at his own site, www.ultimatechase.com. We talked to the 27-year-old DV daredevil about the art and science of capturing nature at its most temperamental.

BOARDS: Let's discuss how you came to this line of work...what was the first storm you experienced and the first you shot?

THEISS: I've been interested in photography and video since I was a kid. My grandfather was a photographer for Firestone, doing action shoots in crazy situations. One of the things [he did] to shoot races was lay in a sling that would dangle above the track, so [he] could get the shots of the cars passing underneath.

The first storm I documented [was] Hurricane Andrew, about an hour and a half after it passed through. I was about 14 - my family was just driving around and I was just documenting the damage from the car. The first storm I actually documented as it was happening was in 1998 - Hurricane Georges, as it hit the Florida Keys. At that point, it was really just a hobby but over time the stuff I was getting was pretty good. The Weather Channel wound up being interested and it went from there.

BOARDS: Is there a lot of special camera equipment that you use?

THEISS: I really do it the old-fashioned way - I don't even use any underwater housing or casings. I want to get the natural sounds of everything - the wind, the rain - and when you put a rain cape on the camera, all you hear is the sound of the rain on the cape. I usually just throw a small towel over the camera. More often than not, I'll lose a camera every shoot. To me, losing a $3,500 camera will be worth it if the video is that much more real - usually I'll make it back from video sales. With Katrina, I lost two cameras and all kinds of equipment but it was worth it - the main thing was I lived through it, and I was able to capture it raw.

BOARDS: You've developed something you call the Theiss Device, a camera within a shatter-proof casing designed to withstand the most extreme conditions...

THEISS: That was originally designed to be used in tornadoes, not hurricanes. But after Hurricane Charlie, when I got some incredible video of winds that were at about 165 mph, I thought 'Man, if I had the Theiss Device, I could've put it right in the path of the wind and got some insane video.' When Katrina came along, it was the perfect opportunity to try it, so I deployed it in the lobby of the Holiday Inn that [still photographer Jim Reed and I] were camping out at. It basically captured the entire lobby being gutted when the storm surge came through the first floor. The device contains a GPS tracker inside it, but I didn't turn it on. Luckily I did find it - I had placed it on newspaper machines in the lobby and once the surge came in, it got caught and floated away with it. It's a scary thing to say, but it kind of captured the perspective of a drowning person - it was right at the waterline, bumping into furniture floating by.

BOARDS: What's been the most dangerous storm you've documented? Have there been times when you thought 'Uh-oh, this is it'?

THEISS: With Katrina, I was in a relatively safe environment but with Charlie, at the last minute I went to where the best winds were heading in the Charlotte Harbor area, and I'd never really been there before. I ended up documenting that storm from my car - usually I try to find a parking garage but there were no buildings around. I used a convenience store at a gas station to block the wind - pulled the car up as close as I could to it and shot out of my window. The car was destroyed - the windows got busted out and debris was flying everywhere. As far as the danger factor, that was one of the only times that I got concerned doing this. People always ask 'Do you get scared,' but to me getting scared is about panicking and freaking out. I don't let that happen.

BOARDS: This sort of work must involve a mix of respect and awe for the force of nature as well as a touch of thrill-seeking...is there an adrenaline rush involved?

THEISS: There's the anticipation the night before - you can be a nervous wreck. There are some people, the storm chaser types, who do it for the adrenaline. But I do it for awareness - I want to show people just how dangerous and destructive these hurricanes are. If I can capture something on video that winds up in a documentary, and a family in a hurricane-prone area sees that documentary, they'll remember those images. Especially with the Katrina video - anybody that lives on the coastline who sees that video would have to think twice about staying next time.

BOARDS: Having experienced the brutality of nature close-up, what's the biggest thing you've come away with?

THEISS: When the tsunami happened and I saw that footage, I couldn't believe how powerful that wave was. A year later, experiencing Katrina, it really made me appreciate the power of water.

BOARDS: Any thoughts of entering a less dangerous line of filmmaking?

THEISS: I'd love to.