For the Love of Clouds

I Love clouds, I just can't hide it. I have always been mesmerised by their endless shapeshifting and can sit and quietly watch them travel across from horizon to horizon for hours, billowing up or wisping out in search of their final destination. I often take timelapse movies of clouds just so I can watch them move in realtime. It's a bit like concentrating a soup, intensifying the flavour of the experience. They describe the actions of sky in the most interesting ways and on a still summers days when large Cumulus clouds roll up like candy floss (cotton candy) it feels like there's another world up there. When you're flying through them at altitude I always get a stiff neck, because I can't stop looking at this other world, up in the sky.

All Shapes and Sizes

Clouds give us clues about what's happening in the atmosphere. They tell meteorologists anyway ! I am always amazed at how clouds can seem so different when we travel. At the coast we can see clouds roll in over the sea and storms can block out the light almost completely. When we are high in the hills, we feel we can touch them, standing eye to eye and we sometime disappear into them in a whiteout ) as often happens when skiing). If we scale a mountain, there's nothing more incredible to behold than looking down on earth from above the cloud base. It can really feel like we're up on Mount Olympus with the God's. When the sky is still and there are thin clouds high up, one of my favourite images are the tidal ripples left in the cloud, as if someone has drawn the sand at the beach after the tide has gone out. It's a very similar process which reveals clues about what's going on up there/

Water Vapour

Clouds represent the continuity and nebulous nature of life. When sea water is heated by the action of the sun, it lifts up into the sky in a process called evapotranspiration, (one of my favourite all time scientific terms). Soil and plants contribute to this process too. The atmosphere holds plenty of water vapour, but clouds form when tiny specks of dust (aerosols) in the atmosphere condense the water vapour into visible water droplets or ice crystals, depending on the height and temperature of the atmosphere. There are three type of rain making scenario. Frontal rain is when a band of warm air meets cold air. The warm air is pushed up, cools and then down comes the rain. Orogrpaphic rain is similar but is induced by changes in topography. When warm air comes in off the sea and meets high altitude land (hills and mountains) a similar process occurs to Frontal rain. Then there is Convective rain. This is produced when warm air is evaporated out of the ground and forced up creating instability in the atmosphere. It often leads to isolated showers. Enough meteorology for now !

Imagining clouds

Clouds are beautiful and ephemeral. When I can connect clouds to rain, land and the sea or even a puddle with a reflection of a cloud in it, it feels like we have a story. I have literally thousands of pictures of clouds from all over the world. Here are a few of my favourites and a few which connect clouds to rain to water to land, to the sea and a puddle.

40007086659 - clouds undulate along the hills of la palma.jpg

Clouds undulating along the hills forming a rare cookie cutter pattern of the hillside profile. This is La Palma in the Canary Islands. Warm air rolling in off the Atlantic Ocean meets cool mountain air revealing itself as a temperature band along the hilltops which are often covered in cloud, while the beach below is bright and clear. This was quite a treat and a rare sight to see ! 1/640th @ f9 ISO 100

15293306163 - clouds amass over the atlantic in summer at 35 000.jpg

At 35,000 feet over the Mid Atlantic these model village clouds rolled on without a break for hundreds of miles. They were slowly rolling East and I could see my summer coming. Where the cloud tops billowed up it was if we were skimming mountain tops. 1/2646th @ f2.6 ISO 50

104091398051 - sunset clouds tulum mexico.jpg

A plume of cloud billows up lit up like a lantern by the setting sun over the Caribbean Sea in the late afternoon from Yucatan, Mexico 1/500th @ f5.6 ISO 100

61115426091 - manhattan sunset easy on the clouds.jpg

In Upper Manhattan on a warm summers evening, wispy clouds settle into a gorgeous Peach Sorbet sunset, whipped through with contrails from the many jets landing and taking off from the city's airports. 1/125th @ f4.5 ISO 100

25324695414 - clouds at 33 000 feet.jpg

Clouds at 33,000 feet. As the aeroplane banked a turning I could see right down on top of the cloudbase and this shot is made all the more dramatic by simply inverting the monochrome tones to emphasise the forms. 1/800th @ f14 ISO 100

40937073026 - mountains clouds snow.jpg

Crossing the Alps we are treated to a wonderful sight of jagged and snow covered mountain tops while clouds dance across as if dusting icing sugar across a giant rack of cakes 1/400th @ f9 ISO 100

28483223243 - morning clouds gather over the north wales.jpg

Early Morning on the Menai Straits between the Mainland of North Wales and Anglesey Island it is dead calm. Moored up in the Straits as the sun comes up over the horizon, the landscape slowly changes as clouds billow up over the hills in the distance and a low bank of cloud rolls over in dramatic fashion. 1/320th @ f8 ISO 100

23694273155 - rain drops and clouds as the storm breaks up.jpg

Rain drops on the window as the dramatic and raging clouds of the storm break up and disperse after a heavy downpour in the city 1/500th @ f10 ISO 100

15569048311 - birds trees clouds water wind and sky sefton park.jpg

Lenticular clouds like ephemeral airships from another world form in sculpted layers high up in a cold Winter sky above Sefton Park Lake in my hometown of Liverpool. 1/400th @ f9 ISO 100

28482178300 - the great orme headland under a cloud of mist.jpg

Passing along the epic headland of the Great Orme in North Wales. Usually a geologist's dream of uplifted and corrugated strata, this morning it was veiled under a heavy bank of mist, making it feel like we were part of an Arthurian legend. The sounds of the Seabirds become muted and it's eerily quiet. 1/250th @ f7.1 ISO 100

11574921150 - sunbeams through clouds on the heath near.jpg

Crepuscular Rays are usually only seen through clouds and it always feels majestic to see the scattering of the all powerful sunlight which feeds life on Earth through broken cloud. Sometime's referred to as God's Fingers there is certainly a poetic truth in the fact that without them (nothing alive would exist) Sunlight and water. Here seen from the bleak looking Heath at the New Forest in the UK. 1/400th @ f10 ISO 100

35596381493 - why did the cloud cross the road to rain on the.jpg

Why did the cloud cross the road ? to rain on the other side of course. It's an odd thing to see, a cloud crossing a road but we are at about 1,000 metres up in the hills of La Palma ! 1/125th @ f4.5 ISO 100

19341004678 - calm waters and epic clouds looking towards the.jpg

This image taken while sailing along the North Wales Coast has all the elements of the rain cycle visible. It's also got that lovely symbolic tryptic of the three Earth states; Air, Land & Sea. Billowing up over the coast these clouds feel so big and so close that they're about to envelope you. 1/1100th @ f5.6 ISO n/a

23694495977 - rain cloud breaks into a wet blanket over east.jpg

A rain cloud breaks up in front of my eyes over Central London as water comes peeling away from the cloud as if someone opened the bag. This view is often seen in the distance but when it's close up and backlit, it's very dramatic and a rare opportunity for a photograph. 1/400th @ f9 ISO 100

36743069768 - clouds rain puddle pavement.jpg

Clouds breaking up after rain and the rain that they left on the ground. A simple but effective story of clouds and rain. 1/200th @ f7.6 ISO 160

123369087346 - fridays storm over london.jpg

A bolt of lightning to finish. Perhaps the most dramatic and one of the most powerful results of what can happen in atmosphere when conditions are just right. 10 seconds @ f10 ISO 100

Technical

There are so many different conditions for clouds that there isn't really anything useful I can add here. Your focus is set to infinity and away you go. A raincoat and a waterproof bag might help if you're storm chasing ;)

This Post is Dedicated to the Clouds - (Photographic Essay)

For the Love of Clouds

All Shapes and Sizes

Water Vapour

Imagining clouds

Technical

all images copyright Christos Hatjoullis (Outerground) unless otherwise stated