In 2013, Google announced plans to update satellite imagery across its mapping products to provide an unobstructed view of the planet.
In this process, clouds were erased. Before they were completely removed, I captured screenshots from Google Maps.
As Susan Sontag wrote, “To photograph is to confer importance.” This series reframes clouds from unwanted obstacles into key subjects, preserving them like photos of long-gone family members.
Not without raising questions about the act of photography, authorship, and digital preservation, these images carry the quiet, melancholic sense of something that once was and is now lost.
