Swirly, wispy, fleecy clouds
Thanks to a tip from Jason Frels, on the morning of May 29th Eve and drove some 25 minutes north to Leander, a fast-growing suburb of Austin, so we could go walking for the first time in Benbrook Ranch Park. The swirly and wispy clouds that accompanied us the whole time kept changing and forming intricate designs that enticed me to take lots of pictures of them in their own right, as shown above. I also welcomed the chance to play other things off against them, like the dead tree below.
© 2020 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
Those clouds look good. I bet the walk with a friend felt nice.
circadianreflections
June 5, 2020 at 5:55 AM
The clouds looked so good I kept stopping and taking taking pictures of them, turning the camera this way and that in the search for pleasing compositions.
Steve Schwartzman
June 5, 2020 at 6:01 AM
😀
circadianreflections
June 5, 2020 at 6:28 AM
You can re-post that dead tree shot for Halloween, I think!
Robert Parker
June 5, 2020 at 6:05 AM
An apposite suggestion. Does that mean I’d have to color the clouds orange?
Steve Schwartzman
June 5, 2020 at 6:17 AM
Wispy White is good for ghosts, but Pumpkin 🎃 Orange, or Candy Apple 🍎 Red would work, too.
Robert Parker
June 5, 2020 at 6:22 AM
I hadn’t though about the white of the clouds for ghosts. I guess the sky could take on the colors you suggested.
Steve Schwartzman
June 5, 2020 at 6:33 AM
Beautiful clouds! Jason mentioned your blog and I am glad I checked it out! Nature is so wonderful!
joyroses13
June 9, 2020 at 9:39 PM
Welcome. There is indeed a lot to see in nature. I’m glad to have presented some of it.
Steve Schwartzman
June 9, 2020 at 9:58 PM
The first picture reminded me of an abstract painting that I once saw in a dentist’s waiting room.
Peter Klopp
June 5, 2020 at 8:08 AM
I think I missed my chances to supply offices and waiting rooms with pictures.
Steve Schwartzman
June 5, 2020 at 8:10 AM
I find this picture astonishing b/c just this last Monday, I too noticed the swirly, wispy clouds. I live in Leander, and walked my dog around a pond near our nature trail. I was listening to such a good podcast, that I lay in the luxurious St. Augustine grass off the gravel path, and stared with wonder at the clouds. It was a good day!
Kate
June 5, 2020 at 12:14 PM
It was indeed. I took plenty of cloud pictures in Leander and Cedar Park that morning, then in the afternoon more in my Austin neighborhood. I’m glad you got to see the show, too.
Steve Schwartzman
June 5, 2020 at 12:47 PM
Beautiful pure cloudscape. I can’t seem to pull that off. You do.
Michael Scandling
June 5, 2020 at 1:47 PM
I do and I did, and had a good time doing so on and off through the afternoon.
Steve Schwartzman
June 5, 2020 at 3:23 PM
Do you see the somewhat abstract ‘W’ in the first photo? ‘W’ for windblown, I suppose. I like the way you’ve darkened the sky in the second image. It adds to the drama of the limbs reaching into the clouds.
shoreacres
June 6, 2020 at 9:10 PM
And that W could also be for ‘wiiiide.’ In processing abstract pictures like these of clouds, I adjust the various sliders in Photoshop until things look good to me. That may not match “reality,” but then, as we’ve discussed so many times, people don’t see the same thing the same way anyhow. In traditional photography people put a polarizer in front of the camera’s lens to darken the sky and increase the contrast with clouds. I could’ve used a polarizer but I got the same effect digitally.
Steve Schwartzman
June 6, 2020 at 9:20 PM
It looks like something Judy Collins would sing about.
tonytomeo
June 7, 2020 at 10:15 PM
I wish she would sing about these.
Steve Schwartzman
June 8, 2020 at 6:35 AM
Well, she sort of does. She looked at them from both sides.
tonytomeo
June 8, 2020 at 4:17 PM
Being on the ground, I could only look from one side. Flying in the Philippines last December I got to see some from the other side.
Steve Schwartzman
June 8, 2020 at 4:50 PM
So they must have looked completely different?
tonytomeo
June 8, 2020 at 5:03 PM
Here’s how some of them looked:
https://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2020/01/13/ive-looked-at-clouds/
https://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2020/02/25/we-had-two-december-25ths-last-year/
Steve Schwartzman
June 8, 2020 at 5:08 PM
Awesome! Now I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now too! . . . Oh, wait, I did not see the other sides.
tonytomeo
June 8, 2020 at 5:55 PM
Yeah, you’d have to arrange for someone down below to photograph or video the underside of the clouds at the same time.
Steve Schwartzman
June 8, 2020 at 6:30 PM
That is all too much work. I will just leave it to Judy Collins.
tonytomeo
June 8, 2020 at 6:38 PM
Just remember that the song was Joni Mitchell’s.
Steve Schwartzman
June 8, 2020 at 6:42 PM
I remember that the song was almost before my time.
tonytomeo
June 8, 2020 at 6:43 PM
Yes, Joni Mitchell wrote it in 1967 and Judy Collins popularized it in 1968.
Steve Schwartzman
June 8, 2020 at 6:55 PM
Well, I was a year old when it was popularized, and busy being born as it was written.
tonytomeo
June 8, 2020 at 7:22 PM
Nice clouds. We had some mare’s tail cirrus this morning but I was in the car and by the time I got where I could set up they had become mixed with some overcast. I had photographed the sky earlier but the fancy clouds didn’t become prominent until after the light had faded and I moved on to a floral shoot appointment.
Steve Gingold
June 10, 2020 at 1:20 PM
Yes, they were the most photogenic clouds we’ve had in a while. The fact that they kept changing throughout the day gave me many chances—which I took. I ended up with lots of configurations that I liked but I figured two is plenty for one post. Too bad the overcast kept you from recording your mare’s tail cirrus this morning.
Steve Schwartzman
June 10, 2020 at 2:52 PM
Love your swirly wispy clouds ..I’m a cloud fan
Julie@frogpondfarm
June 10, 2020 at 2:51 PM
Me too, in a big way. That was a great day for clouds, and I took a whole lot of pictures.
Steve Schwartzman
June 10, 2020 at 2:52 PM
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