Sunday, August 17, 2008

Appreciating clouds

click photo to enlarge
I am one of the 13,175 (and counting) fully paid up members of The Cloud Appreciation Society, an organisation that proclaims the beauty and interest of clouds, that fights the banality of "blue sky thinking", and urges everyone to live life with their head in the clouds!

It's not surprising that this UK-based organisation has found more than half its membership in this group of islands: the British Isles are noted, not always favourably, for the clouds that stream overhead. However, members can be found across the world, in 66 very different countries, so it is obvious that elsewhere there are people who walk around looking upwards, appreciating the beauty of the meteorological phenomenon that makes our planet (as far as we know) unique.

If, like me, you can't conceive of living in a place where clouds don't form part of your everyday experience, and you want to maximise the pleasure that this marvel of nature offers, then you could do worse than visit the Cloud Appreciation Society's website. Here you will find information about types of cloud, photographs that illustrate the beauty of clouds, images of clouds that look like animals and objects, cloud art, poetry and prose, and much more.

I was thinking about the beauty of clouds (and this inexpensive, fun Society) as I took this photograph of a Lincolnshire wind farm. The past week has produced some particularly lovely skies, and I was pleased to be able to use these very three-dimensional fair weather clouds (stratocumulus) as a backdrop to the turbines.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/500
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On