On Clouds

                       

I am utterly enthralled with clouds. Clouds capture my imagination no matter the setting. Here I will try to put into words some of the why that has compelled me to photography the clouds. I will try to create a literary contrast between Northwest Cumulus and the Southwest’s Cirrus Clouds.

Clouds make up the oceans of our atmosphere they are transitory by nature; they are sky waves that ripple upon the winds and thermal currents in the air. They embody change for they are constantly in flux. Like yin and yang, they are cold and hot. To really capture the essence of clouds requires passionate anticipation, passionate intuition. Clouds pour down rain into the oceans below, where it's then recycled and sent back above. This recycling is epitomized in earth’s cycle of life, of death, and beyond. It is this beyond that Clouds so personify.

 “Northwest cumulus clouds play a definitive role in terms like “Big Sky” or “God’s Country”. These Cumulus Clouds seem to have been chiseled out of large globs of albino clay and smacked down with temerity; splattering-clumping onto this canvas we call sky. Covering the sky-canvas this cloud clay is then sculpted and chiseled with the acumen of the Gods”.

Southwest Clouds often appear more subtle, more measured. Still they’re capable of extending their presence across, even beyond the horizon. In the Southwest cirrus (stratus) clouds often stretch across the horizon as if one long translucent sheet of rice paper were stretched out upon the walls of one’s living room.

These clouds compliment and interweave themselves into this cohesive fabric we call sky rather than define it.  Clouds here work more in conjunction with the landscape rather than acting as its predominant feature. Their soft, fluffy, or billowing, yet their uniform surfaces accentuate the landscape rather than defining it as in the Northwest.