The day had been hot, humid and sticky. A storm was inevitable. It arrived quickly, bringing hail, wind and wet, and left just as soon as it arrived leaving the world a much cooler, fresher place. The clouds milled about for a while as though observing the results with satisfaction. Berlin was cleaner, for a while. A hole appeared in the clouds above me quickly turning into what looked like a tear in the heavens. So I made this image.
Watching it disperse reminded me of these lines from Errinerung an die Marie A. a poem by Bertolt Brecht:
Und über uns im schönen Sommerhimmel
War eine Wolke, die ich lange sah
Sie war sehr weiß und ungeheur oben
Und als ich aufsah war sie nimmer da.
//And over us in the beautiful summer sky
There was a cloud on which my gaze rested
It was very white and so immensely high
And when I looked up, it had disappeared.
The english translation doesn’t do the poem any justice at all. I discovered the poem in The Lives of Others, an incredible film and essential viewing for any ex-pat living in Germany. You can get a feel for the poem by watching this beautiful scene from the film:
The poem is about transience which is what a great deal of my work is about. There is a sense of sadness and nostalgia for the past and it reminds us that nothing ever stays the same, what was once beautiful in that moment will never be again. I photographed these clouds for the same reason. Watching them after that brisk but violent storm, a moment of excitement where all the neighbors came to their balconies to watch the heavy hail. We all looked at each other and smiled. The man next door goofily wore a silly orange helmut and two girls on the pavement ducked for cover, hugging each other and laughing under the tiny bit of shelter they could find – pretty moments, soon disappearing from everyone’s memory, like that cloud in the sky.