Clouds are a landscape photographer's spice to add flavor to their images. Don't believe me, do a google on "Ansel Adam on cloud" and see how many hits come up of his images that have "cloud" in the name.

My point is this, There are a lot of good images that have a bright blue cloudless sky. There are many more "great" images of the same location that have clouds in the sky! I love the Owens Valley, it is gorgeous. That said, would the above image be so moving if it did not have those wonderful clouds in the sky? I think not.

At times I travel a lot. When I do I spend a lot of hours in airplanes. It was during those hours that I really fell in love with clouds and how God paints the sky with them. I am amazed how many folks who have window seats who never even look out at the incredible scenes that are going by their windows.

Now, I always try for a window seat. It soothes my soul watching those wonderful clouds float by. It makes the hours of the flight, fly by (pun intended.) I take my camera almost every trip and have come away with some incredible images. See a few below. Most think I am crazy because I root for the plane to get closer to those thunderheads, damn the turbulence, I want to get my picture!

Can You See it? Near the top of the cloud, just to the right of center there looks like a scratch in the image.  It is actually another airliner.  So just imagine the immense scale of that cloud! — Can You See it? Near the top of the cloud, just to the right of center there looks like a scratch in the image. It is actually another airliner. So just imagine the immense scale of that cloud!

So forgive the long download time. I am going to let my cloud images do the talking for me. After an hour + of trying to whittle the number of images down I still have too many images in this post . If you like the images with clouds you may want to check out my friend Matt Granz work http://avax.news/charming/Storm_Clouds_by_Photographer_Matt_Granz.html. He has gone head over heels for Storm chasing and a lot fo his images are breathtaking!

So sit back and enjoy the clouds!

Reflections