For Thanksgiving break, I went back to San Francisco to visit my family for the week off. One day, we decided to introduce my cousin’s new boyfriend to life in San Francisco, because he is from Texas. Unfortunately, Karl the fog was not around for the whole week, as is sometimes typical during this time of year. However, there was a nice form of cirrocumulus or altocumulus that was around for most of the day, November 25. I took this picture looking directly upwards at 1:14pm from Huntington Park, which happened to be 1 block from the Weather Underground Nob Hill Station. This allowed me to collect data during this time: 64 degrees F, with a dew point of 40F, 41% humidity, 9mph WNW wind, and 30.27 inHg pressure. The high of the day was 69F, and the low was 42. Throughout the day these types of clouds were present. They are formed of many small ice-crystal clouds at high altitudes (5-12km). It is also possible that these clouds are altocumulus, which occur during the same conditions but at altitudes between 2 and 6.1 km.
Additionally, Dr. Hertzberg found that UWyo does have a weather station that can produce Skew-T diagrams in Oakland, which is a few miles east across the bay. The time was 00Z, which is 4pm Pacific time, about 3 hours after the time of the picture. With a CAPE value of 0.00, the weather was as stable as it gets. Additionally, the curves nearly touch at 5820m and about 11500m, meaning that the clouds could have been either cirro or altocumulus.
I chose a more dramatic approach to the image editing. I took the picture with my iPhone XS, and I edited the image with darktable, adjusting the rgb curve, contrast, brightness, saturation (removed all), green-magenta contrast (removed all), blue-yellow contrast, and velvia. These manipulations were done to bring detail to the clouds that was somewhat lost when I removed the saturation to give the image a black and white appearance. I also rotated the image into landscape, which doesn’t mean much because the image was originally taken looking directly upwards.
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I think it was a good idea to make the picture black and white, but both the original and edited look great!
I like how the composition is completely full screen, the only edit I might’ve suggested is increasing the contrast to make the background darker and the clouds pop. Really cool photo
I love the texture in this image! The clouds really look like cotton balls which is cool. I appreciate the conversion to monochormatic, I think it is quite nice.
Wow this is really cool, I like that you chose the back and white, it really focuses on the texture of these clouds.
The unique angle you took this at does the clouds artistic justice.
The editing that you did in this image is great and I think gives the image a whole new meaning, while retaining most of the info that describes the clouds. When I first looked at it I thought it almost looked like a mountain range as seen from an airplane.
It’s interesting that you choose to rotate the image. Portrait images usually don’t display well on websites.
I really like your choice in editing, the black and white adds a cool dimension and texture to this image
I really like the choice to go with black and white, it makes the image more abstract
I like the decision to turn the image monochrome, I think it adds drama to the composition. Nice job capturing these neat clouds!
I really enjoy the monochrome effect you put on this image. It adds an effect of no context but in a good way. This could be clouds or could be cotton in a bowl or anything. Great job.
The image reminds me of popcorn! The individual clouds have a playful look and feel.