And just like that, it's November!

Silvio O. Conte National Fish & Wildlife Refuge, Hadley MA
Photo by Jennifer Murphy

Our featured photograph for November in the 2026 Head in the Clouds Amherst wall calendar comes from Jennifer Murphy, who captured this beautiful sunrise at the Silvio O. Conte National Fish & Wildlife Refuge in Hadley.

We've always found November one of the hardest months to capture. Autumn's brilliance has faded, but winter hasn't yet settled in, and the landscape can seem stark, even desolate. But Jennifer makes it look effortless, revealing the striking bones of the season: sunrise over the hills, light gilding the cattails, still water, and the fields beyond.

Just this morning, I noticed that a tree outside my window, resplendent in orange only days ago, had shed nearly every leaf. Suddenly, there it stood, all branches and sky. Beautiful in an entirely different way.

Perhaps that's November's particular gift. With the color and abundance of autumn slipping away, we begin to notice the shapes and textures that were there all along. The landscape hasn't lost its beauty. It's simply revealing something else.

For our final 2026 calendar, the jury selected favorite images from more than a decade of past calendars rather than issuing an open call. Jennifer's photograph first appeared in our 2024 calendar, and it's a lovely reminder that even the quieter months have their moments of wonder.

Only one more month to go in our calendar year. How did that happen so quickly? 

Something in the air this Halloween...

As October gives way to November, we find ourselves at that curious crossroads of the year when Halloween, Samhain, All Hallows' Eve, and Día de los Muertos invite us to contemplate the changing seasons, the mysteries of nature, and the worlds both seen and unseen. And speaking of things seen and unseen... have you looked up lately?*

The sky has its own share of mysteries, apparitions, and shape-shifters. Clouds appear out of nowhere, transform before our eyes, and vanish without a trace. Some look like creatures, some like castles, and some like things we haven't quite got names for. No ghosts required! So, in the spirit of the season, I'm sharing a recording of Introduction to Cloudspotting, a Zoom workshop I presented last spring, hosted by the wonderful Cary Library in Lexington. It's a lighthearted introduction to the art (and a little of the science) of looking up, identifying clouds, and discovering just how much wonder is drifting overhead. Consider it a little seasonal invitation to spend more time with your head in the clouds. After all, the veil between the ordinary and the extraordinary can be remarkably thin. Watch the workshop here:

https://youtu.be/NTTRn2ZRZoI?si=sGZNZaIM-SbTsM8z

*Yes, I realize that our recent run of spectacularly blue skies has left cloudspotters with precious little to spot. Consider this workshop a way to prepare for their eventual return. Maybe even clouds deserve a little time off!

The Soul selects her own Society —

Poetic Dialogue silhouettes of Emily Dickinson & Robert Frost, Amherst
Photo by Mindy Domb** 

You all may have heard the news that the metal silhouette of Emily Dickinson - from the "Poetic Dialogue" sculpture in downtown Amherst - is currently missing and presumed stolen. For those unfamiliar with the installation, "Poetic Dialogue" actually features (featured?) two silhouettes - Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost - facing each other and imagined to be deep in conversation.

Social media is full of speculation about what happened, who did it, and why. Among yesterday's trove of comments, I even saw one person concluding that "of course it had to be a man" who carried her off. I'm not so sure. Although Robert Frost is often assumed to have been folksy and friendly, people around here (who interacted with him or knew him by reputation) don't describe him quite as generously. Apparently he could be vain, competitive, and cruel at times. Not to cast aspersions on a local artist (even the best have their curmudgeonly moments, after all), but does Frost sound like someone Emily would want to be locked in perpetual conversation with? Perhaps it was a sympathetic woman who liberated Emily from her post. One can only imagine how Emily might have felt about spending eternity listening to a man explain poetry to her.

P.S. UPDATE as of 10/6: Emily has reportedly been found in a junkyard. No word yet on whether she's willing to return to the conversation.

P.P.S. UPATE as of 10/8: It now appears that Emily has NOT been found in a junkyard after all. Her whereabouts remain unknown. I suppose we should have known better than to expect Emily Dickinson to make herself so easily available.

**Note about this photo: Mindy Domb submitted this photo for our 2025 calendar, and not to accompany this particular blog post. Ultimately, this was selected as the featured photo for May in the 2025 Head in the Clouds Amherst Wall Calendar. 

Pure Autumn

Franklin County, looking west
Photo by Brittany Wolcott

This featured photo for October in our 2026 Head in the Clouds Amherst wall calendar comes from Brittany Wolcott, who captured this spectacular autumn landscape looking northwest across the hills of Franklin County.

Does it get more iconic than this? Brittany has been a frequent and welcome contributor over the years, gracing us with astonishing images, often from trails and heights that only a dedicated hiker can reach. Here she gifts us pure autumn in Western Massachusetts – hills ablaze in every color of fall beneath a sky brushed with clouds.

With this year's foliage already showing promise, it seems an especially fitting image for October. And we loved this photograph so much that we gave it double billing – not only as our October selection, but also as the cover of our 2026 calendar!

For our final 2026 calendar, the jury selected favorite images from more than a decade of past calendars rather than issuing an open call. Brittany's photograph originally appeared in our 2023 calendar, and we couldn't imagine a better image to celebrate autumn in the Valley. 🍁☁️

What we bring to the sky

Biebrich, Wiesbaden, Germany
Photo submitted to the 2026 Memory Cloud Atlas
by Michael Menger

As I reviewed photographs for the Memory Cloud Atlas today, I found myself paying as much attention to people’s words as to their clouds.

Across hundreds of submissions, certain themes surfaced again and again: awe and wonder; the feeling of being very small beneath an immense sky; and, somehow, the simultaneous reassurance that we are not alone.

People wrote of clouds as calming, centering, and safe. From parts of the world fractured by war and conflict came reflections on peace and the constancy of the sky. From places enduring drought and punishing heat came longing for clouds - not merely for their beauty, but for the rain and relief they might bring. And from people in the United States came memories of another September 11, twenty-five years ago, when a clear blue sky became forever entwined with grief.

Even the weather we wish for depends on where we stand.

In Germany, Michael Menger photographed a beautiful late-summer sky above the Rhine - but below it, the riverbed lay exposed after weeks of extremely low water. He wrote that, unfamiliar as it might sound, he would rather see “a rainy and cloudy sky now.”

From Nádszeg in Trnava, Slovakia, another kind of relief:

“The chill of autumn has crept upon us, bringing quiet rain and rolling clouds.… These pensive days are one of my favourites, a much needed relief after the scorching summer heat.”

Submitted to the 2026 Memory Cloud Atlas
by Nádszeg Nagyszombat in Slovakia

Yet in Fairbanks, after an unusually cold, wet, gloomy summer, Hannah C. Hill greeted blue sky, sunshine, and puffy clouds as “a balm to an otherwise soggy heart.”

And beneath one nearly empty California sky, Lisa Rigge wrote of feeling both an “ethereal aloneness” and a sense of grounding - of realizing that “there’s more than just me and us in this universe, and somehow clouds connect and can lead me to that greatest expanse of more.”

Perhaps that is what we bring to the sky: our longing and grief, our weariness and hope, our memories, fears, and imaginations.

And perhaps this is what the clouds give back: perspective, wonder, and the quiet recognition that wherever we are - and whatever challenges we are facing - we remain under one shared sky.

Looking Up Together: Cloud Appreciation Day 2026

Fleeting cirrocumulus over Amherst, August 2026
Photo by Sharon Vardatira

International Cloud Appreciation Day is here!

Today, Friday, September 11, people around the world are pausing to look up, notice the sky above them, and share what they see through the Cloud Appreciation Society’s Memory Cloud Atlas.

This is, hands down and eyes skyward, my favorite annual celebration. Wherever you are, you can take part for free: simply photograph your sky and submit your image at https://www.memorycloudatlas.org/.

The Atlas is open for contributions only today, although your photograph need not have been taken today. If you can’t get outside, or your sky is stubbornly cloudless, you’re welcome to submit a favorite cloud photograph from another time. Clouds do not always perform on command, and the Atlas understands.

You’ll also be invited to say a few words about how the sky makes you feel. Together, the photographs and reflections become an extraordinary record of people in different places, countries, and cultures turning their attention toward the same shared atmosphere.

I have the particular joy of participating from both sides of the Atlas. Along with submitting my own photographs, I serve on the Cloud Appreciation Society’s Member Council and am part of the global team working behind the scenes to review and curate the images as they arrive. Over the course of the day, I’ll scroll through hundreds of skies from around the world: quiet skies and dramatic ones, familiar cloud forms and astonishing surprises, each seen and shared by someone who took a moment to look up.

It is difficult to imagine a happier assignment.

In a year that has been difficult and tumultuous in so many ways, the Memory Cloud Atlas offers a simple but powerful reminder: looking up connects us - not only to the beauty and endless variety of the clouds, but to one another.

So wherever you are today, pause for a moment. Turn your eyes skyward. Photograph your patch of our shared atmosphere - and add it to the world.

Happy Cloud Appreciation Day! ☁️🌤️

#CloudAppreciationDay #MemoryCloudAtlas

Fall, Waiting in the Wings

Tobacco Barn - Roosevelt Street, Hadley MA
Photo by Sharon Vardatira, August 22, 2026

We know fall is waiting in the wings when Hadley’s tobacco barns begin filling with freshly harvested broadleaf tobacco.

Last weekend, the barn doors stood wide open, ready for the harvest to come. By yesterday, tobacco wagons were making their way up and down Roosevelt Street, carrying the crop from field to barn, where the leaves are hung in long rows to air-cure. And now those once-empty barns are filling with green.

Fall hasn’t arrived yet. The summer days are still long, and those first crisp nights are yet to come. But by this time next month, autumn will officially be on the calendar and the harvest season will be well underway.

I paused in the midst of my Saturday chores yesterday to capture these newly hung leaves against a moody, on-and-off drizzly altostratus sky. It’s one of those late-August scenes that reminds me that seasons rarely change all at once. They announce themselves in small ways first – in a field being harvested, an open barn door, and the first unmistakable signs of what comes next.

Tobacco Leaves - Roosevelt Street, Hadley MA
Photo by Sharon Vardatira - August 22, 2026

Cumulonimbus over Amherst

Cumulonimbus over UMass Amherst - August 6, 2026
Photo by Sharon Vardatira

In all my cloudspotting, this is the first time I've been in a position to capture that classic cumulonimbus view, with the top of the cloud flattening into an anvil shape as it reaches the tropopause - the boundary separating the troposphere from the stratosphere. There’s something especially satisfying about seeing a formation you’ve encountered countless times in diagrams and other people's photos suddenly unfolding, unmistakably, in the sky above you. Also, of course, cumulonimbus clouds are massive storm clouds that produce lightning, wind, and hail. So I was expecially excited to see it for that reason

Exhibition in Two Galleries

Hampshire Bicycle Exchange
University Drive, Amherst
Photographer: Andy Churchill

This featured photo for August in our 2026 Head in the Clouds Amherst wall calendar comes from Andy Churchill, who captured the Hampshire Bicycle Exchange on University Drive beneath one spectacular Amherst sunset.

At first glance, I could have sworn this was a chic art gallery, its windows glowing in counterpoint to the extraordinary sunset. Imagine my surprise when Andy told me it was the Hampshire Bicycle Exchange. Only in Amherst could a bike shop pull off looking like modern art!

What I especially love is the conversation between sky and storefront – the brilliant pinks, oranges and purples overhead answered by that little illuminated world of color below. It's one of those scenes that rewards a second look: something completely ordinary, transformed for a few minutes by light, timing, and the good fortune of someone being there to notice.

For our final 2026 calendar, the jury selected favorite images from more than a decade of past calendars rather than issuing an open call. This photograph originally appeared in the 2024 calendar – and feels just right for August, when the long summer evenings give the sky plenty of time to put on a show. 

Nature's Fireworks

Anyone in Amherst on July 4, 2016, will remember this sky – nature's own fireworks over the annual festivities. Many submitted versions of this scene, but we loved Marian Wolfsun's unedited capture of its extraordinary brilliance. 

Cloudspotters will recognize these clouds as altocumulus – specifically, I'd call this altocumulus stratiformis radiatus. (Cloudspotters can happily debate the finer points, of course.) The long, parallel bands create that wonderful sense of perspective as they converge toward the horizon, while the sunset transforms them into what almost looks like brushstrokes across the sky. 

Altocumulus are a perennial favorite around here. There's something irresistible about the way these mid-level clouds gather into ripples and rows, turning ordinary sunrises and sunsets into something unforgettable. We can't promise they'll always steal the show on the Fourth of July... but in 2016, they most certainly did. 

May all your gatherings this month be equally radiant. ☁️✨

This is the featured photo for July in our 2026 Head in the Clouds Amherst wall calendar. As a reminder, for our final 2026 calendar, the jury selected favorite images from more than a decade of past calendars rather than issuing an open call. This photograph originally appeared in the 2017 calendar.

Umbrella Sky

North East Street, Amherst MA
Photo by Mindy Domb

This photo by Mindy Domb reminds us of what makes summer in Amherst so special – farm stands tucked into fields, calling us to stop even as we hurry past on our daily routines. A longtime supporter of Head in the Clouds Amherst and our state representative, Mindy has an eye for the everyday places where community takes root. 

This is the featured photo for June in our 2026 Head in the Clouds Amherst wall calendar. As a reminder, for our final 2026 calendar, the jury selected favorite images from more than a decade of past calendars rather than issuing an open call. This photograph originally appeared in the 2019 calendar.

Cloud note: We briefly considered identifying every cloud in this photograph. Then we remembered there was a farm stand to visit. Let's just say the sky is serving up a classic summer Valley mix: a little haze, a little sunshine, and a cloud layer that seems content to drift overhead while everyone else gets on with the important business of growing vegetables.

Bramble Hill Farm in May

Photo by Meg Wright
Bramble Hill Farm, Amherst MA

For whatever reason, over the years, we’ve always received fewer spring photos than any other season. Fortunately, Meg Wright captured everything we love about May in this one image – wild bergamot (bee balm) in the foreground, farm fields beyond, and early morning fog blanketing the Valley. Meg took this photo while walking past Bramble Hill Farm in Amherst.

This is the featured photo for May in our 2026 Head in the Clouds Amherst wall calendar. As a reminder, for our final 2026 calendar, the jury selected favorite images from more than a decade of past calendars rather than issuing an open call. This photograph originally appeared in the 2018 calendar.

Does fog qualify as a cloud? While there is some debate about that question, we here at Head in the Clouds Amherst agree that fog is simply a stratus cloud layer that's in direct contact with the land or sea. It's the one time when your head really can be "in the clouds," So let those tiny little water droplets envelop you - and enjoy!

P.S. NOAA agrees!

Intro to Cloudspotting - April 15 at 7 PM

Need a reason to look up? Look no further! 

I’ll be giving a virtual “Intro to Cloudspotting” talk with Cary Library in Lexington (on Zoom) – and you’re invited. We’ll explore cloud types, rare formations, tips on photographing clouds, and some ways clouds show up in local art and literature.

No rules. No tests. Just sky.

• Date/Time: April 15, 7-8 PM EDT
• Register here for this free talk: https://carylibrary.assabetinteractive.com/calendar/hold-virtual-cloud-spotting-101-with-sharon-vardatira/

Come spend an hour with your head in the clouds!

"Amherst, where only the 'h' is silent"

Amherst Town Hall
Photo by John Snyder

This featured photo for April in the 2026 Head in the Clouds Amherst wall calendar comes from John Snyder, who captured this striking view of Amherst Town Hall beneath a vivid rainbow.

This photo won us over with its timing and symbolism – a hopeful and bright rainbow crowning Town Hall. It captures Amherst’s pride in community, embrace of diversity, and politically active and fiercely opinionated citizenry. As the saying goes, “Amherst, where only the ‘h’ is silent.”

This photograph originally appeared in the 2018 calendar – and it feels just right for April, a month of welcome change, new life, and the occasional burst of color after the storm.