Why do I photograph things? I think that it's an attempt to keep a moment, to hold it, or
possess it. I want it to belong to me.
Standing outside in the driveway I am watching clouds build, fractals unfurling into infinity
and then disappearing into the past. No two moments in time are identical. I am watching
molecules and raw power and the two are discordant. Thunder rumbles in the distance.
This storm won't hit us, it's moving north and east. I am watching it roll past us but I still
feel a twinge of danger. I look up directly above me and see white billowing masses piling
on top of each other, cumulonimbus, reaching higher and higher. I reach for my phone and
snap a photo not wanting the beauty of that moment to escape into the abyss of imperfect
memory. But each iteration is perfect, and I continue to press the button on my phone
hoping for one photograph that encompasses the calm and stillness, the petrichor that
drifts on the breeze, the awesome power of thunder and the terrifying yet mesmerizing
thought of not too distant lightning. It's then that it catches my eye- that deep gray-blue
color. I can't describe it. I spend a moment trying to categorize the color in my mind. The
crisp outline of the cloud against the brilliant whiteness of the cottonball clouds behind it. I
snap another photo and look at my phone disappointed. That’s not it — not even close. I try
again, and it looks like something, but not the thing that I want it to look like. I watch the
storm on its slow march past me, I listen to the intermittent thunder but there’s no wind
here. I watch the clouds move and morph and then suddenly, the sky is blue. The sun light
shines through the leaves on the trees and the birds begin to chirp and the clouds are gone,
This is what it is to me to photograph a cloud. It's like trying to hug a ghost and being left
with the impression that something was there that will never be again and clinging, in the
form of a photograph, to the wisps of beauty that it left behind.
