Charlotte Bialek was good enough to send the first of these shots over, and when she told me she was a member of the Cloud Appreciation Society, I knew I had to see more. A sculptor and photographer, Charlotte has lived in the area for over 12 years and is active at the Art Students League of New York, creating figurative sculpture and focusing on environmental themes, particularly plastics. “Clouds and street art are two of my favorite photography subjects.”

The Cloud Appreciation Society’s manifesto (“It is real and not totally silly, although we do indulge,” Charlotte said) notes that clouds are nature’s poetry and expressions of the atmosphere’s moods. “We believe that clouds are unjustly maligned and that life would be immeasurably poorer without them…Life would be dull if we had to look up at cloudless monotony day after day.”