Cumulous clouds reflected onto a wavy lake, both simple and complex at the same time. I like to think of optics as moveable art. There’s something meditative about observing how light interacts with the environment. It dances on the surface interacting with the objects found above and below it—never duplicating, always changing.
illusion [iˈlo͞oZHən]
wrongly perceived or interpreted by the senses
I’m an avid cloud watcher. It makes me miss the ocean less when I can simply look up and see its pattern repeated in the sky. The canvas is ever-changing yet the illusion remains.
Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.
John Muir
I love a good storm. There’s something about it that makes you feel alive. It engages all of your senses in a way that never happens on a sunny, clear day.
Clouds scud across the sky and if you’re lucky some of the more unusual cloud formations appear. These mammatus clouds appeared ever so briefly, perhaps 4 minutes, but it was amazing to watch them develop and slip away into a swirl of gray.
So excited to add them to my ever growing collection of clouds.
in magic.
Believe you can and you’re halfway there.
Theodore Roosevelt
I believe that we never feel as old as we actually are and that it is never too late to start over again.
I believe that a soul mate exists and that they are someone who accepts every quirky thing that makes you who you are and loves you in spite of those things.
I believe that the sky is one big canvas that on some days remains blank, lacking in inspiration, and on other days blows your mind with beauty and creativity.
I believe that it’s the challenges that make us grow.
I believe in celebrating each day.
What do you believe in?
and weather.
Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy – your work becomes a dance with light and the weather. It takes you to a place within yourself.
Annie Leibovitz
The Cloud Appreciation Society believes that clouds are nature’s poetry and I would have to agree. I’ve embarked on a self guided study of them and the more I watch them the more disappointed I am to wake up to a “blue sky” day!
This day was filled with endless drama: rain, hail, wind, and the very occasional pop of light when the sun broke through.
If I hadn’t been sitting in my Jeep with the window rolled down and settings dialed in, I would have missed it. I’d been hoping for some lightning but that brief moment of sun worked to add the perfect highlight to my gray study of the lake.
Two things that were invaluable for my shooting set-up that I always have in my Jeep…a trash bag and a beanbag. The trash bag becomes a poor man’s raincoat for my camera and lens and the bean bag gets draped on my window ledge to hold my camera steady. Not always easy during stormy conditions.
Have a great week and remember: having your head in the clouds is a good thing!
might be as easy as looking back..
Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you’re ever at a loss for inspiration or direction I recommend spending some time thinking back on early childhood memories.
When I was very young I had one of those charts put out by The National Weather Service showing examples of different types of clouds. I find it as fascinating today as I did back then and over the past few years I have been slowly making my own cloud chart.
I woke up on this morning to a sky filled with what we grew up calling a mackerel sky. It was always an indication that the weather was about to change.
With these clouds came the chance that I might get one of the shots that I have been looking for…iridescent clouds. Conditions have to be just right for these to form; tiny ice crystals or water droplets causing light to be diffracted high up in these cirrocumulus clouds.
These were especially colorful as they moved in waves across the sky close to the sun’s edges and I remembered to take time not only to photograph them but simply lay back and enjoy them as they blew by.
Check! Next up on my list…mammatus.
it's (almost always) about the water... 