Clouds are the ever-shifting architecture of the sky, a cathedral of vapor that reconfigures itself moment by moment. They float and billow with a majesty that belies their impermanence, summoning awe as they tower into thunderheads or soften into veils of cirrus. To gaze upward is to witness an unfolding gallery — shapes suggestive of myth and memory, scenes painted in white and gray against the deep blue dome of heaven…In their silence, they offer a reminder that beauty need not announce itself loudly; it simply drifts into being, and drifts away again.
Above all, clouds remind us of transience and wonder. They embody the paradox of being both immense and fleeting — grand monuments in the sky that dissolve in minutes. To watch them is to be drawn out of one’s small concerns and placed again in a larger rhythm of change and continuity. Their majesty lies not only in their scale or their beauty, but in their ceaseless invitation to pause, to look up, and to feel the sublime presence of a world larger, more intricate, and more beautiful than we can ever fully grasp.
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As Autumn and winter near, I rejoice in the relief from this past summer’s terrible heat. For much of this past summer I ventured outdoors late each day near sunset to take a walk. The late afternoon was simply too intense, even in the shade at the park. When the heat index in this new world of global warming is 103-110 degrees every day, this once carefree and memorable season full of vacations and good memories is much less enjoyable than it once was.
I also missed being out early in the day to witness the spectacular summer cumulus clouds that appears like giant sailing armadas in the sky. These clouds will diminish and be gone before long, replaced by clear, blue sunny autumn and winter skies that lack the drama, intensity, and both memory and mood-evoking qualities of cloud-filled summer skies.
I am a lifelong cloud watcher who, every day there are clouds to be seen, tries to capture their magical momentousness with my camera. Some days, like yesterday around sunset I am very lucky. The sky was a mesmerizing shifting pelette of clouds and changing colors. Fiery yellows, oranges and red, and then the fading embers of pastel purple and darkening blues. I gazed at it for long moments yesterday, full of wonder and amazement.
Here is a gallery of some of my favorite cloud photos from the past several months:
https://www.flickr.com/gp/camas/K8Q842q7Uu
I have long written about and photographed clouds. This is from September 27, 2008:
A week ago at the state park, the sky was filled with clouds. Big, cumulus clouds. Clouds drifting through a hot blue summer sky. One of the last of the summer skies as October nears. To me each cloud that day seemed grand but solitary, huge and wondrous as the clouds of August and September can be. I photographed them at each of my favorite spots, pausing at each turn in the trail to marvel at the way clouds have awed and delighted me ever since I was a child. As an adult I never lost that childlike wonder, for clouds have always sailed off in my imagination over blue infinity, creations of this planet’s atmosphere, but also allowing me to ponder how mystical other worlds beyond ours might be if they were half as beautiful as late summer skies on our fragile planet Earth.
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