Clouds...

Clouds have fascinated me since I was a young child. As a photographer I enjoy the challenge of photographing clouds. Ever changing, whether they are the cotton candy clouds of a lazy summer afternoon, the ferocious thunderheads of a tornadic supercell, or anything in between, they are constantly changing and shifting from photogenic naturescapes to the shot that comes after the shot that got away. Therein lies the challenge.

I captured this one from a mountainside in Panama. It was a good thing I got it at this moment because just a few seconds later the wind blew into a wispy remnant of its former self.

Also Panama - Near the mountain town of Boquete, a mountain range that forms the spine between the Caribbean and Pacific Coasts of the country also forms a barrier during the dry season that seems to hold the rain clouds at bay (from the Pacific Coast side at least - I have no idea what was happening on the Caribbean Coast side of the mountain). Thus, during much of the day, this is what the ridges along the top of the mountain range looked like.  

Mornings near Boquete were generally spectacular. This is the view from Manana Madera Coffee Plantation above Boquete at about 6 a.m. Central Time.

I did say this post is about clouds, so we'll move a few miles north of the equator to Little Rock, AR. A few days ago this very interesting (and menacing in appearance - although quite harmless in reality) formation of mammatus clouds moved directly over the office where I work. The clouds stuck around for a little while, giving pretty much every photographer in the city ample time to get off a few shots.

Below is a shot I got not long ago of the sunset reflecting off of a very cooperative cloud formation. The deep red color was helped along just a bit in post-processing, I confess, but the original shot was quite spectacular in its own right. I'll have to post it once I get my current moving ordeal in the rearview mirror and my belongings retrieved from storage.