Helmut Völter
Cloud Studies













Wolkenstudien. Cloud Studies. Études des nuages, Spector Books 2011. 20,5 x 27,5 cm, 272 pp., German / English / French
Clouds are fleeting entities – studying them so as to correctly classify, name and read their forms was considered in the 19th and early 20th centuries an important step in coming to understand the secrets of the atmosphere. In its early stages photography offered scientists completely new ways of depicting clouds. They used cameras to make precise, lifelike images, which provided in turn insights into the interaction of clouds and the atmosphere. Cloud Studies presents six different stations of scientific cloud photography, from its beginnings in the 1880s to the images made by the first weather satellites in the 1960s. Each of the six chapters represents a very different scientific and photographic perspective of clouds.














Cloud Studies: Six stations of scientific cloud photography, in: Skies and Seas. Artistic practices of collecting, Günter Karl Bose, Axel Töpfer, Helmut Völter, Museum für Photographie Brunswick, 2010








Cloud Studies: The scientific view into the sky, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, 2011