Photo Journal/Photo Challenge: E is for Ethereal

Hey everyone! It’s my turn to post for Frizztext’s A-Z Photo Challenge. Today’s feature is for Story Challenge: Letter “E” and I call mine ETHEREAL. I was out yesterday to grab a few stuff from Wal-Mart, fill my gas tank, and get a car wash. I dropped by Barnes & Noble to check out a couple of books, and bumped into a lovely friend. Every time I leave the house, it has become a habit of mine to look at the sky and see if the clouds are visible. On the days that I am not writing for Gathering Books, I am chasing clouds. I don’t know when my fascination (or perhaps obsession?) with clouds began. I created a photo album on my Facebook account and called it “Of Clouds, Skies, and Sunsets.” I am drawn to clouds as other people are drawn to sunsets. Clouds have this celestial beauty that always leaves me in awe. I love clouds in all forms and patterns. I love how, one day, clouds can look so delicate in the sky and, the next, gloomy and overcast. The thing is, I find the latter just as breathtaking as the former. The following photos were taken using my iPhone 4, without edit or filters. I hope you enjoy looking at these clouds as much as I enjoyed chasing them.

“A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed… It feels an impulsion… This is the place to go now.  But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.” ~ Richard Bach

“The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious.  And why shouldn’t it be? It is the same the angels breathe.”
~ Mark Twain, Roughing It

“Consider yourself. I want you to imagine a scene from your childhood. Pick something evocative… Something you can remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even smell, as if you were really there. After all, you really were there at the time, weren’t you? How else would you remember it? But here is the bombshell: you WEREN’T there. Not a single atom that is in your body today was there when that event took place. Every bit of you has been replaced many times over… The point is that you are like a cloud: something that persists over long periods, whilse simultaneously being in flux. Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you. Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of which you are made.” ~ Steve Grand

“Aren’t the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton… I could just lie here all day, and watch them drift by… If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations… What do you think you see, Linus?”
“Well, those clouds up there look like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean… That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor… And that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen… I can see the apostle Paul standing there to one side…”
“Uh huh… That’s very good… What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?”
“Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind!”
~ Charles M. Schulz, The Complete Peanuts Vol. 5: 1959-1960

BELOW: I took this shot a few days ago at work, in my usual parking space. This was the fifth time I’ve used this tree for my subject, but this was the first time the tree had company. And because I like Edgar Allan Poe, I name this shot “The Raven.” I suppose I can also say E is for Edgar Allan Poe, eh? Hehe.

“What a strange thing it is to wake up to a milk-white overcast June morning! The sun is hidden by a thick cotton blanket of clouds, and the air is vapor-filled and hazy with a concentration of blooming scent. The world is somnolent and cool, in a temporary reprieve from the normal heat and radiance. But the sensation of illusion is strong. Because the sun can break through the clouds at any moment…” ~ Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration