It was while living in Micronesia that I began to notice clouds in a different way.
Out in those islands of breathless sunsets, clouds seemed to pass so low you felt
you could grab them. From that point on they continued to present a collection
of characters, animals and entities that now make up this book. One friend sug-
gested that I title the book, ‘The Gestalt of Clouds’. After all, up to 1800, clouds
were called “essences floating in the sky.” That was before Luke Howard published
his study, giving clouds the Latin names we have since come to know.

The images have been captured over the last twenty years. All photos were taken
from the ground. The process has been one of wait and watch, as the convergence
of cloud, wind, angle and light serendipitously and ever so ephemerally, presented
an image. The Monet ‘waiting by the pond’ approach, or Picasso’s, ‘I don’t look
for anything, I just keep finding things’ come to mind, though in no way am I
equating myself to those giants. Nature is the artist here, and I have been a lucky
spectator. Enter poet, Jack Collom, who threw his magic into the clouds and listened to them speak.

All photographs were taken with a pentax 135 mm camera. Some negatives were
unfortunately damaged in storage, but with the help of friend and photographer,
Eric Neurath, they were cleaned up and restored on Photo Shop. The photos have
not been altered in any other way, and the integrity of the images always remained
tantamount to the process. In some cases, where negatives were lost or damaged
irreparably, copies of the original prints have been used. My thanks to Patrick
McAllister, for help in pulling the whole project together into this book form. My
titles are at the end of the book, as the viewer may see some things totally new.
 

It's only glory,

an avalanche, molecules.