It is Time for a new thread on B&W cloud pics.

I start off with,
Curious Cloud
[IMG][/IMG]

Grey Path
[IMG][/IMG]

ML, thanks for getting the new B&W thread going. Here in the Owens Valley of California, the Weather Gods are on auto-pilot, snoozing while blue skies run amuck...yuck. But a week ago, a few cumuli danced during our high winds:

A very nice accumulation of cumuli there AK.I like the flow of the shot. Fun!

Yea, its been about a month since any rain in the Valley. At least a week without one single real cloud, not counting the few contrails yesterday that raised hopes. A few cirrus over a week ago, thats it for recent history. But, I got a heck of a back log of shots and monsoon season begins in 3 or 4 weeks. ...!!!..btw,,its 100 degrees outside as I type. Yeaaababy! that kind of continuous heat is what gets the monsoon here.

Heres a shot that I just have to get out of my backlog. A good while back there was some low stratus that thought it was going to hang around the desert for awhile. HAA! So when the forces started herding them out some strange stuff started popping up in the skies. Below is a field of undulatus stratocumulus , kind of ragged but weird and fascinating.
[IMG][/IMG]

AK and Mike, these last two are sensual beauties. I find it interesting how the eye goes to the edge of form, like that deep black area with the clearly delineated edge in AK's photo, and those lines in Mike's where it looks like someone has taken pencil or charcoal to accentuate the forms. Thanks for these great photos you two! Just as a point of interest AK, if that photo were in colour, would that darkest area be the deepest blue of the sky?

Helen, yes, the darkest is also the bluest. Here is a color version, with a different crop, a different interpretation:

This shot reminds me of a cocktail, so I call it, Cloudtini.
[IMG][/IMG]

Whoa Mike! Your undulatus shot looks like giant celestial stingrays flying in the sky!

Jari

Thanks Jari!,,Mixed clouds always provide for imaginative fun. I think I spent around an hour taking pics as that system blew thru the Valley. Every time I turned around there was a whole new vista. Those undulatus were it ,,no others appeared as I took pics. ..??..

Below is a very close up of a contrail overhead the back yard. The lighting and wind pushing combined to make a interesting pic imho.
[IMG][/IMG]

Clouds streaming up from the southwest snuck into the Valley overnight. The sunrise this morning was of the shocking pink variety. Incredible. But I was driving to work when the lurid color show was going on. Before I pulled into the work place parking lot I went the other direction and took some pics. Below is one of them. It was taken around 5:30 am. By noon, the cloud stream went south and haven't seen them since.
[IMG][/IMG]

Van Gogh, eat your heart out!

Hi Mike,

Your Clouds at 5.30 photo just reminds me of a microscope close-up of cells or some part of the human body. Tremendous!

Your contrail photo is also very strong. Really bold design which for some reason reminds me of watercress!! Any chance of me using it on Crow? If so could you e-mail me? Thanks!

Best,

Alec

HAA! Yes it felt as if I was slowly loosing my grip on reality as day 14 of not seeing any clouds approached, and as grateful as I could be for the early morning Van Gogh sky, i was still let down when by noon the clouds had got up and,,Van Went. And of course Alec, I thought you might be interested in the Contrail. As soon as I am done with this post I'll be emailing you.

So here are a few more from 5: 30 am yesterday. First shot is the classic stream out of the southwest. The following two are almost directly overhead or nearly so. I can believe that perhaps the Debussy music my local " classic" radio station has been playing recently did have an affect on how I saw the sky.
[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]

Familiar patterns there, ML, but on a ginormous scale. Thanks.

AK,,Good obervation there on the " Ice Crystals' The "Van Goghian" shots are of very high clouds. If one looks closely at the upper right hand corner of the stream shot, there are a small sample of what was on the " edge" of the stream. I watched them all along the drive from Tempe thru Mesa to work. So, true to form, the edge clouds where higher, cirrus like, and became thicker as they dropped into alto cumulus elevation, towards the main stream. The ice crystal analogy works well with the sharp lacunosus of these clouds. I am beginning to think that the " heat dome" over Phoenix is the cause or manipulator of the abundant lacunosus clouds I've seen . Here is a shot just a few weeks old;
[IMG][/IMG]

Same set up..on the edge and very high up. There was a " sheet" of cirrus like gauze that suddenly appeared to be having holes shot thru it. This picture makes the cloud look much more substantial than it was. Its amazing I was able to get a focus on it.

Stasis
[IMG][/IMG]

Before Science
[IMG][/IMG]

Cat Nap
[IMG][/IMG]

Maybe there is a good Hans Christian Anderson tale in the photo. Maybe the photo has too much going on for a HCA tale? I once watched a movie " short" of a Russian folk tale. It seemed to go on for ever tho. Well maybe the photo can inspire a long tale from you.
[IMG][/IMG]

These have got to be Valkyries, and Wagner's Ring Cycle is quite an epic I believe, though I've never experienced the whole thing.
'Stasis' is my favourite photo so far by the way (though this is a close second). I don't know, something about the smoothness and the contrast combined in one.

Anita, North Cumbria, UK

Haa Anita!! touche'!...I always believed Wagner , like Stephen King, could not figure out how to end his creations, so on and on they go! Can't say that I ever made it thru the Ring Cycle in one sitting. So, maybe that photo offers an opportunity to go on and on with it. Like most, alls I saw when I took the shot, was a lot of interesting shape and lines. Trust is a big part of my photography of the clouds. Glad you like it.

The below one, I saw it when I took the shot, as you see it now. Trust in my abilities played a bit more than trust in mom nature to provide the unseen.
[IMG][/IMG]

I'll go with Anita, Stasis and Cat Nap are appealingly Armani like. I like fluffy too, mind.

Yes I like Stasis too. As Anita suggested, I found the contrasts varied and thus interesting. Below is a visual into the dream state, where Dali painted from during his early days.
Dali's Moustache
[IMG][/IMG]

Physics of Emotions
[IMG][/IMG]

Gargoyles
[IMG][/IMG]

Re Dali, did you know, MikeL, that someone nicked a Dali recently then sent it back a week later - or is this just one of your coincidences?

Trying to understand takes the goal further away.
[IMG][/IMG]

Clouds and Dreams..oh well..

In The Arms of Morpheus
[IMG][/IMG]

ahhhh

Anita, North Cumbria, UK

[IMG][/IMG]

The Caress of Wind Above and Below



Black and white add not only drama to an image but sometimes wonder. Most of my early experience of film be it moving or still was in black and white. Great Expectations exuded terror and atmosphere, to me as a child, not only through tremendous acting and direction but the effect of black and white....the graveyard scene. ( This shows my age! )

The darkness of night which hides the unknown, can sometimes relay this feeling to a still photo where really dark areas may exist. Some black and white photo-journalism is extremely powerful upon our perception.

Years ago I tended to do more B&W because it was cheaper, especially when self processed. The challenge of the genre is conditioning the brain to perceive the subject in the viewfinder without colour. I realize one can use filters but how will they effect the desired contrast?!

B&W can definitely be more challenging. Thanks Mike for starting this thread and the motivation to indulge in the medium once again.

Keith

[IMG][/IMG]

Turneresque in Grey

The effect around the sun conjures up for me, faint images of his work...Rain, Steam and Speed.


[IMG][/IMG]


Clawing for Height


The bank of cloud has taken on a tsunami form, hesitating, clawing higher before it pitches over.

Keith

Keith, I've been told B&W photography is all about getting the observer to Feel. With color we tend to use color to do that for us and forget about line, form, texture,contrast etc etc. Seeing the possibility in any view becomes a mental habit but takes exercise to develop. Still,grasping the technical abilities to create what one " sees" has become easier with the digital revolution, imho. As your photos so well demonstrate, Mood or State of Mind is what a successful B&W photograph gets us in touch with.
Below is a moody minimalist effort.
[IMG][/IMG]