Cloud People

There is much to learn with the way clouds behave. Clouds suffer from an intermittent identity crisis but they don’t know it. With all the attempts to put them into cookie-cutter shapes and categories, they insist on flaunting both their good and bad shapes every time we look up. That is what makes them profoundly unique and beautiful. Too many times we as individuals have sought to hide our imperfections, our mixed feelings, our inner struggles.

This project was an experiment of self-reflection: I invited each individual I photographed to thoughtfully describe their past year, month, week and day with adjectives, keeping in mind that each time period is its own challenge. With those words, together we created an image that best personified both them and their cloud. Interestingly enough, whether the word was positive or negative, or somewhere in between, after the shoot each subject was visually more confident in their sense of self than before the exercise.

Ultimately, it is as we accept both the good and the bad in our lives that we are able to better understand who we are and why we are that way. Not one life better than another; just different.