Banded Rows of Clouds at Sunset ~ Pasadena, Calif.

4 Palms in Pasadena from August, 2010

On the weekday bike commute halfway between the house and the job,  a spray of feathery clouds against a typical California landscape can get my attention.  Jim Staub ~ Dec. 2011

Evening Sky with Parrots and Pecan Tree ~ Pasadena, Calif.

A troupe of wild parrots make the - over the back fence neighbor's tree -  a favorite location to settle for a spell. It's never a long visit.  They seem argumentative and capricious.  Mexican Red Heads, I hear.  A solo squak quickly becomes a chorus of madcap shrieks, and the Pecan tree is left bare once again as they peal off in a semi-uniform school. The parrot's activities are nothing elegant, yet if you're in the market for raucous slapstick they're a welcomed interruption to that work-a-day sky.   Jim Staub

                                                                                    

Clouds/Hills Near Corona, Calif. ~ June 2011

   I'm seeing the author, John Steinbeck's descriptions of rural California in these landscapes.  An old ranch house, and a few scattered grazing horses might further complete his setting for a novel.  These photographs were taken in a freeway fast series, from a moving car south of Corona, Calif.  Without those wind shaped clouds the camera might have remained stashed.  Jim Staub Dec. 19, 2011

Three Cloud Filled Skies from Pasadena ~ Fall 2011

Double Rainbow Just up the Block - Pasadena, Calif.

Montana Sky / Idaho Sky - Sept. 2010

 I took this from an Idaho Falls supermarket parking lot at dusk.  No one in the area seemed particularly astonished by this sky. People going about their business.  I decided not to avoid the parking lot light , but there wasn't much time to look for an undeterred view anyway so I made a few exposures as my wife waited in the car with the bananas I had just purchased. Jim Staub  Dec. 13, 2011

In Montana heading down the State on Interstate 15. 

Cypress, Amber Tree and Strata Clouds

The Amber tree lost it's colorful leaves in an historic windstorm a short time after I took this,  December 1, 2011 .  I doubt I would have photographed this composition without those leaves.  Jim Staub

The Palm Tree in it's Regimented Civic State - Pasadena, Calif. 2011

 An older neighborhood marked by iconic towering palm trees.  Palms offer a graphic  style to the air space over a  street. Not much shade though.

Heavy Sky and Wires Near San Jacinto, California 2011

The darkened sky over the hills was enough for me to pull off the highway, and reach across the truck seat for the camera. Strong open sunlight played off the landscape just up to the beginning the hills. I shots some Cottonwood trees, and then a subdivision of packed together uninhabited houses with this light. It was the lines running along and above the highway that contrasted starkly against those hills. I made a few exposures that late April day.     Jim Staub

The Cumulus Clouds - Ever the Jovial Ones.

Wind! Pasadena, Calif. June, 2011

Eucalyptus Tree with San Gabriel Mountains Backdrop - 2011

Vapor (Chem) Trail above Pasadena, Calif.

Largely manipulated image.  It began to look like scientific data following computer filters etc. applied to the file .  Just for kicks.  Jim Staub

Two Skies from Glacier National Park ~ Sept. 2010

Early morning cloud formations from Lake McDonald, in the Western section of Glacier National Park.  Unlike rock formations, clouds here have an extremely short like expectancy.

Cloud and Vapor Trail Array - Pasadena, Calif. looking north

On a lunch break, Spring 2006.  The sky can contain a cast of characters. There is line, shape, volume and often timing involved with settling into the  quadrangle frame, these transient spaces. Jim Staub

Vapor Trails and a Sunset from Pasadena, Calif.

I've done my share of landscape photography. The sky;  the air space above the horizon was not such an attraction to me as it has been in the last several years. The sky and it's effects supported a photograph's subject, but was not the subject itself - my thinking anyway.  The digital camera and Photoshop probably had a lot to do with my increased interest in giving the atmosphere full stage.  Playing with the saturation,   levels, curves, density and filters ( did I miss anything? ) turned the upper half of our physical space into worthy subject matter, a photograph that needed no other support or reason to explain itself.


 I would also have to admit that it's a fairly safe place to aim the camera.... the sky has been my refuge from a street photographer's anxious world - my anxiety and those people I shoot without warning. I haven't abandoned the streets and the workings of those streets as a subject entirely.  The upper half has given me a resting place where I can still make a composition from almost nothing but a cloud. Here's a couple more images quite different from each other yet in the skyward category. I'll work these posts down to street level eventually, I think.

Jim Staub

Cloud Five Miles East of 29 Palms, Calif. Spring 2010

Publish Post

Atmospheric Conditions as Viewed from Pasadena, Calif.

Thunderhead over the San Gabriel Mountain Range. Looking N. E. from Pasadena, CA. August, 2011

Clouds under the influence of a setting sun. Pasadena, CA.  January 2010

Cloud Patterns - Pasadena, Calif.

Clouds/ San Gabriel Mountains at Dusk - Pasadena, Calif. early 2010

Clouds and Moon - September, 2011

Clouds Late Summer - Pasadena, California 2011

Clouds/Atmospherics Sept/Oct 2011 Pasadena, California

Cloud Studies in Pasadena, California