Exploring Cloud Types: A Photographer’s Guide

“The sky is the key to the landscape”

The sky and the clouds can play an important part in all sorts of photographs (even ones in which they might not appear!). They can add drama to a landscape or architectural photograph, they can provide you with different types of lighting, and they can help you emphasise your subject. Even on the dullest day, clouds can have a part to play in your photography.

However clouds can make great photographs in themselves.

This is the first part of a two part posting. In this post we are going to celebrate clouds, looking at the works of different photographers to seek inspiration. We will also take a look at the different sorts of clouds, identifying the ones which are the most photogenic. What types of clouds are there, and what particular features do they have which could be useful to you as a photographer?

In part two we will look at how to photograph clouds including in tricky situations such as shooting into the sun or when the sky is brighter than the foreground. We will also look at what part an overcast sky can play in your photography – more than you might think.  And what about those days when there are no clouds – clear blue skies are great for beach holidays  but sometimes they might not work well if you want to create dramatic photographs, or could they? Find out more in part two – coming soon!

For the moment, let’s celebrate clouds.

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In celebration of the cloudscape

I have always sought out places with dramatic skies whether that is over the sea or land; two of my favourite places are anywhere on the coast where the sky hangs large overheard or the Fenlands in Cambridgeshire where the clouds offer an ever-changing drama.

Sometimes the clouds hang high above a distant landscape, or perhaps they are much lower, rolling in and filled with the threat of rain; or they might hang so low they turn into mist or fog. Or they might be touched by the colour of the morning or evening light; perhaps they are just wisps drifting overhead (maybe even the trails of aeroplanes).

Whatever they are I always try to look upwards and capture them in my photographs.

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Clouds have inspired other photographers as well.

“The sky is the key to the landscape”

Leonard Misonne (1870-1943)

Misonne was a Belgian Photographer working in the pictorialist style in the early years of the 20th century. He  photographed landscapes and street scenes in which the sky and clouds played an important role. His interest was in the light from the sky as much as the clouds themselves and how it illuminated his subject so he would photograph in all kinds of weather.

Pictorialism was a popular style of photography, seeking inspiration from painting and many of its images have a painterly feel. Misonne recognised the importance of clouds in landscape photography and, in my view, took some of the best photographs that included clouds.

“The clouds are the cool voices of the sky and winds.”

Ansel Adams (1902-1984)

Ansel Adams was a landscape photographer famous for his images of the Sierra Nevada in California. If you are interested in landscape photography Adams will need no introduction. His carefully crafted photographs, from composition, setting the exposure (he developed the Zone system for ensuring optimum exposure for his images), and printing are renowned. Clouds played an important part in many of his photographs:

A major part of his photographic process was simply to wait until the clouds were in the right position for lighting and composition to create the perfect photograph.

“In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality”

Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946)

Alfred Stieglitz took cloud photography to a different level – he excluded everything but the clouds! Stieglitz was a photographer working in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when photography was still in its infancy. He became a champion of the new artform – and he saw it as an artform, to be viewed in the same way as painting and sculpture. In the 1920s he challenged himself to photograph something that had no obvious relationship to anything else – a person or a building, for example – he wanted the images to be abstraction, separated from reality.

He used the term, “Equivalents” suggesting that the photographs more purely expressed his ideas and inner feelings. This was part of a movement in the art world, espoused by the artist, Kandinsky, that colours and shape can reflect the inner “vibrations of the soul”. So Stieglitz turned his camera to the sky and photographed the clouds, trying to avoid anything in the foreground that might literally “ground” his image, focussing solely on the shapes and lights of the cloudscape.

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Cloud types

If you stare up at the sky for long enough photographing the clouds you’ll begin to notice that they come in different shapes and sizes. You don’t really need to know about the specific details of different types of clouds to take great photographs but it can make your expeditions out photographing cloudscapes more interesting. IANAM (I am not a meteorologist) -all the information has come from a splendid book called The Cloudspotter’s Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney, any errors, though, are my own.

There are ten common cloud types or genera classified by height. Each cloud is broken down into species and then into varieties (the characteristics of the cloud’s appearance). And all of this is in Latin! For example, “Cirrocumulus stratiformis undulatus”.

This is the cloud type, Cirrocumulus; species, stratiformis and variety, undulatus. You might know it as the mackerel sky! 

I have listed some of the most common cloud types, broken down by height and I have given each of them a (very subjective) star rating depending upon how photogenic the type of cloud is. Note that within a cloud type there might be certain species or varieties that are more photogenic.

LOW CLOUDS

Typically starting around 2000 feet up (600 metres)

Cumulus – fluffy white clouds – characteristic of a summer’s day. Very photogenic. Great for photographing lying on your back in a field of wild flowers ****

Cumulonimbus – storm clouds rise very high into the sky and can be anvil shaped. Very photogenic. Best photographed at a distance for full effect (and to keep out of the rain or hail) *****

Stratus – low cloud often filling the sky and blocking out the sun or moon, can be featureless. There are species and varieties which can be photogenic for example the fractus species, a ragged variety which can look crumpled paper in the sky or the translucidus variety which allows the sun or moon to show through. This can be useful for other types of photography for example natural light portraiture. Stratus clouds can be very photogenic when they are close to the ground becoming mist or fog. ***

Stratocumulus – similar to Cumulus but bigger and sometimes clumped together. Can be gaps between the clouds which could let the sun through. Very photogenic and great for landscape photographs – wait for the sunlight to break through on your subject and see what it does to your photograph. One variety, radiatus in which the clouds appear to be converging on the horizon, can be great to aid focus on your subject or mirror objects on the ground below such as a river valley or a road leading into the distance. *****

MEDIUM HEIGHT CLOUDS

Starting from around 6,500 feet (1800 metres)

Altocumulus – Higher level clouds or patches of clouds – the most common type is the stratiformis which covers a large area. Can look like a batch of bread rolls on a tray. Similar in appearance to the lower stratocumulus and higher cirrocumulous (differs in size and lighting)

Altostratus – grey cloud cover with limited or no features, uniform in appearance. Have a couple of varieties which include some features – the undulatus (when the cloud cover undulates) and the radiatus (when the undulations appear to run off to the horizon). Like the lower stratus has a translucidus variety through which the sun or moon can be see, tends to look more diffuse. Can look extremely pretty at sunrise or sunset (before the sun disappears behind the cloud). Like the lower stratus it can be useful for outdoor portraiture or architectural photography ***

Nimbostratus – nimbus is the Latin for rain and that’s all you need to know. Low dense cloud that hangs around raining on you.  If you thought the stratus cloud was dull and boring, well wait until you see this one.  Don’t even bother to go out. Dull and rain. *

HIGH CLOUDS

Starting from 16,000 feet (4,800 metres)

Cirrus – the highest of the clouds we are looking at. It comes in a long wispy form. Its name is from the Latin for a lock of hair. Can sometimes seem to being blown in different directions. It’s ethereal nature can look good strong high contrast black and white photographs with buildings rising into the sky below them.  ****

Cirrocumulus – high scatterings of cloudlets. This is the one that produces the mackerel sky (although a similar effect can be seen in the Altocumulus) which can add texture to the sky and could complement a landscape, cityscape or, indeed, seascape (as mackerel sky was a termed coined by fishermen who recognised it a signal to turn for home before the weather deteriorated)  ****

Cirrostratus – a layer of very faint cloud at great height. Can cover great expanses but sometimes barely visible. Maybe turns the blue sky a paler shade. The sun or moon can be visible through the cloud and tend to cast shadows (one way to distinguish this from the lower altostratus). Can create numerous light effects as a result of the sunlight shining through the different shaped ice crystals that make up the clouds. These can include halos, upturned rainbows and even what appear to be duplicate suns. *****

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I hope this has been a useful overview of the different types of clouds and will give you some inspiration to get out there and photograph them in all their glory. If you do I would love to see the results. Post them on Instagram and tag me @stephentaylorphotography so I can see them.

Don’t forget to look out for my next post on this subject showing you how to photograph different cloud conditions, especially the tricky ones and the ones which at first glance might be less interesting.

See you again soon!