Cloud Stories presents a fresh account of the history of sky photography through twenty stories of encounters between the medium and the clouds—from the invention of photography in the early 19th century to the present day. Naturally ephemeral phenomena, cloud formations have fascinated the art world since antiquity: How can these clouds be captured? What do they mean? What do they portend? Are their shapes the same across the globe? Do they mirror our psyche? Can they be artificially reproduced? Artists and scientists have been captivated by the sky and its manifestations for centuries. So when the process of photography emerged, along with its potential to capture reality, inventors, chemists, astronomers, meteorologists, engineers, and above all, pioneers of photography, set about developing innovative techniques that now offer new ways of seeing and understanding the world.

Drawing on the Archive of Modern Conflict collection, this book offers an immersive exploration of a rare body of photographic work, supplemented by images from international institutional collections. Organized thematically and chronologically, Cloud Stories unfolds like a grand photo album punctuated by portfolios and essays. Recognized for her work in bringing to light collections that have remained in the shadows of history, Luce Lebart highlights here the documentary, aesthetic, and scientific contributions of cloud photography to the history of the medium. In particular, this form of photography played a key role in the development of an international classification and nomenclature of clouds.