Dramatic Clouds

We’ve been having unusually warm weather these past few days. Storms and high winds have been rolling through, but we’ve been getting these beautiful sunny breaks in between the wet, blustery weather.

A few days ago, I took advantage of one of those breaks to get out with my camera. That afternoon, mid-afternoon sunlight was shining through a clearing in the cloud cover near the southwest horizon. It’s December, of course, and the Sun never gets very high in the sky this time of year. The effect of that bright light on foreground objects against a backdrop of darker clouds was quite dramatic.

As I wandered around town, I wanted to capture this contrast in an image. As I strolled down the street, I saw this storefront with an interestingly shaped tree sitting beneath some rather dramatic clouds.

My first memory of this kind of scene is from decades ago. When I was an AFS exchange student in Australia during my high school years, I remember seeing similar scenes during wintertime afternoons. Since then, I’ve always been taken by such beauty.