Lying on the ground, near the bay in rural Rhode Island, watching them snarl with heavy weather, reflect in roseate shades the sun as she set, simply pass with quiet majesty, or puff out into a form of playful welcome – clouds offered perspective and grace, asking nothing in return.

 

Always with us – clouds provide an endlessly shifting, perpetual frontier, where natural beauty remains unsullied, unbound, unconquerable and in constant motion.

 

Clouds can be moody or uplifting or frightening or joyous - or more accurately, trigger such moods in us. 

 

Perhaps this is because they are full of portend - of weather to come or, for the biblically versed, the great arrival. Across religions, cultures and eras, clouds have been seen as a demarcation point between the heavens and our own gravity bound lives.

 

The everchanging beauty of clouds is what has long drawn my attention. And the peace that accompanies the serene, unspoken vantage point clouds hold for witnessing the turbulent habits of man. But over time, and as the society around us all coarsens, I have come to also see clouds as a democratic blessing, available for all to enjoy equally – and for none to possess.

 

For more than 25 years I’ve been photographing clouds, to celebrate them and in a small way, trigger a stronger connection with them.  

 

But in the same way that I attend Mass, by sitting in the hindermost pew and letting the swirl of incense, stained glass filtered light, old stone floors and ancient rhythms affect me at a level deeper than thought, I have deliberately never studied clouds. Whatever sense I have as a scientist I prefer activated elsewhere. When observing clouds, I want to simply revel in the musicality of their dance.

​

A gift for painting clouds - suffused with romantic light, lending compositional counterpoint to the habits of rural life or serving as backdrops for the shenanigans of the Gods - enriches the work of painters from Tiepolo and Constable to Rauschenberg. Stieglitz sought healing and expression in the abstract potential and technical challenge of photographing clouds; in ways both more modern and darker, Eggleston saw the chance for philosophical expression in capturing them as well.

 

My own goals are more humble.

 

I want to share with you some of the beauty and peace that I see in clouds, hoping to offer you a moment of joy and soothing influence amidst the world’s roar.

 

– William Haney