Clouds

Where I live on the California coast the clouds we are most familiar with are the kind that forms a uniform gray blanket across the sky, or which occasionally lowers to the ground as fog. Everyone else is spoiled by their skies, which go largely unappreciated.

I often hear people exclaim "What a beautiful day!" when looking out at a scene with a blank blue sky and the Sun beating down with its ugliest light. They do not really mean "beautiful," of course, they mean "comfortable" and "bright."

Photography's own history is full of notable images of clouds, whether it is the clouds Le Gray added to his images in the darkroom (either to spruce up a cloudless image or to compensate for blue-only sensitive films which had difficulty registering clouds and open shadow at the same time), the more than two hundred emotionally resonant pictures of clouds above Lake George by Alfred Stieglitz in the 1920s and 1930s, or Ansel Adams’ majestic billows floating above Yosemite Valley in those idyllic days before the tourists multiplied one hundred-fold.

I've got a book of nothing but nondescript bits of cloud and sky by William Eggelston. He claimed straight-faced that the placement of the clouds in these photos intentionally mimics the Confederate flag. Bang. Instant buzz. The man is a genius.

Clouds are cool. These are mine.