"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky."
- Rabindranath Tagore
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In my previous blog, I talked about how wonderful the weather was. It was doubly perfect having still mornings and cloudy afternoons. The still mornings created “glass” like conditions on the lake surface, one of my signature types of photographic images.
In this post let’s have fun discussing the cloudy afternoons we had for several days in the Eastern Sierra. Glass lakes and cloudy afternoons make for great landscape photography!
Let’s do a little bit of background on why clouds form in the afternoon near the Eastern Sierra along Hwy 395 or any mountains for that matter.
Stratus and Lenticular clouds form in the afternoon because air encounters the Eastern Sierra. The air will rise and cool. This cooler air is no longer able to hold all the water vapor it was able to hold when it was warm. The extra water vapor begins to condense out of the air parcel in the form of liquid water droplets and a cloud is formed.
Watching clouds over time is like watching a movie. The scene keeps changing as the story unfolds
Cumulonimbus and cumulus clouds form when air rises because the mountains are warmer than the surrounding air. That causes the air to rise. Once the air rises, it follows the same process to form clouds as described above.
One additional fact. Sometimes the bottom of the clouds are perfectly flat. Cumulus clouds are the type of clouds that have flat bottoms. The bottom of clouds is the exact height at where the combination of temperature and air pressure causes water vapor within the rising current to condense into a visible cloud.
“There came a day when the clouds drifting along with the wind aroused a wanderlust in me, and I set off on a journey to roam…” - Matsuo Basho
The fact that hotter temperature is involved in cloud creation would seem to explain why most of these clouds don’t hang around for sunset.
For several days, clouds would form in the afternoon and we were lucky enough that some even hung around till sunset. This creates an opportunity that my photographer’s assistant and I like to enjoy. Just find a strategic spot, set up the camera, and then enjoy the show with a bottle of wine and some snacks. It is a great way to get outside and spend a late afternoon/early evening. These evenings were no exception.
One of the nights the clouds put on a show for us was when we were waiting for the Bridgepoint fireworks on the 4th of July. The Bridgeport firework show was awesome, but I think the Sun bursting through the clouds was an equally impressive light show.
Not all fireworks are man made
I hope you enjoy the clouds the Eastern Sierra help create as much as we do! Be sure to check out my other blogs for stories and images in and around the Eastern Sierra. Feel free to share this post with anyone you think would enjoy it.
Wishing happy trials to you, until we meet again!