Nimbus I
Pairing “a serene style with an artistic approach,” Dutch landscape photographer Claire Droppert excels at capturing eye-catching imagery. Her beautiful body of work features studies of the natural world's most simple yet striking elements, including the colors of flowers, the contours of mountains, and, in a recent series, Cloudscapes, the shape-shifting spontaneity of storm clouds.
Cloudscapes comprises ten photographs taken on a warm yet wet summer day. When Droppert saw the clouds begin to form, she immediately grabbed her camera and made her way outside—a decision not out of character for the photographer. “I decided to go to the nearby fields to watch the shower storms pass by from a safe distance,” she tells My Modern Met. “I am continually fascinated by the weather, and luckily here in the Netherlands, we are surrounded with flat landscapes that allow you to see for many miles, all around.”
As the clouds billowed and burst, Droppert used a zoom telephoto lens to capture the details “that were the most interesting and appealing to the eye.” Given the unique look and feel of each cloud, viewers may assume the series was taken over a long period of time. However, all of the images compiled into Cloudscapes were shot over the course of ten minutes, proving just how quickly the powerful storm had grown.
With their beautiful compositions and bold contrasts, these cloud photos speak for themselves. However, it is the spontaneous nature of the photographs that makes them particularly special to Droppert, whose memory of the shoot will not fade away anytime soon. “I find it most interesting that sometimes when you are chasing a particular focal point, it later turns out to be something completely different that catches your eye,” she reveals to My Modern Met. “From a spontaneous visit to the fields, I never expected to see such fascinating clouds developing right in front of my camera lens. It created an amazing natural phenomenon and it was something I shall not forget.”
Cloudscapes by Claire Droppert captures the shape-shifting spontaneity of storm clouds.
Nimbus II
Nimbus III
Nimbus IV
Remarkably, these different cloud formations were all photographed over the course of only 10 minutes.
Nimbus V
Nimbus VI
Nimbus VII
Nimbus VIII
Nimbus IX
Nimbus X
