It hit me this morning when I drove up to my favorite hill to capture the intense clouds I saw pouring over us. It’s not just the sky, dummy, I thought. It’s the clouds.

They are beautiful and unique and their shapes and structures are gorgeous.

In the past few months, I have come to love clouds as my photography has led me to study them and their movements and seek to capture them more clearly and visibly. They are different, and they all have names and their histories and behaviors.

Some clouds are angry and emotional, (above), and some are soft and whispering (below.) Each is unique.

I realized that I am often taking photos of these clouds,  yet I know nothing about them. I need to remedy that.

Several blog readers have been kind enough to tell me the names of the clouds I have been photographing, especially the “halo” clouds I’ve posted lately.

The first step I took was to go on Amazon and other book sites to search for a book on clouds. I found one, it’s appropriately called Cloud Book, and it’s by a scientist and writer named  Richard Hamblyn. It’s arriving the day after tomorrow.

(from the Cloud Book by Richard Hamblyn.)

I’ve also found a couple of online classes dealing with clouds, some from oceanographers and others from artists. I think I’ll take one or two.

I’m guessing these these clouds today are all cumulus. The one above in the Cloud book is a st

How neat would it be to name them and know how they get their shapes. As it is, I’m beginning to sense when they are coming and when they change shape and movement.

The Leica captures the softness ad the beauty of clouds; the Iphone gets their color and emotion. I love landscapes and portraits, and I have camera cameras that love to take those photos.

I can’t wait to give their names. I’ve already found one useful site, it’s called WhatsThisCloud, and they are sending me a free e-mail book on cloud identification.

“When you spot a cloud in the sky,” says the website, ” it will be one of the ten cloud types, or generas, listed below (in the What’s Cloud site and book). To better understand what cloud you’re observing, it’s best to get to know these 10 different cloud types based on their different species, varieties, and features. Knowing how they form, their altitude levels (high, middle, or low base), and what makes each cloud type unique and different from one another will also be helpful.”

The types of clouds can be divided into three levels, each in turn with its own main groups of clouds. All in all, there are ten fundamental types of clouds. I see that some places simply class clouds as cirrus, stratus, and cumulus because these clouds are the most common and representative for each altitude class.

These are the three levels:

• High-level clouds (5-13 km):  cirrocumulus, cirrus, and cirrostratus.
• Mid-level clouds (2-7 km): altocumulus, altostratus, and nimbostratus.
• Low-level clouds (0-2 km): stratus, cumulus, cumulonimbus, and stratocumulus.

It will take me a while to absorb all this, my Dyslexic head is spinning. But I can handle the three levels and ten types. I haven’t seen too many of the midlevel clouds yet, I’ll be looking out for them.

Anyway, it’s hard for me to believe how little I knew or know about clouds, given that I have seen some almost every day of my life. It’s a big world, and I am one tiny microbe in the system.