Godzilla Cloud, The Image That Went Nuts!

It all started on my drive home along Route 128 8/27/15, the same old sites and the usual traffic. Working the midnight shift the drive to work is a breeze, lucky to see more than a dozen cars at that time of night. A lot more traffic for the morning drive but most is heading south towards Boston. I had just crossed into Gloucester when I see a large cloud in the almost cloudless sky. At first I didn't give it a thought then "What was that, someone running in the sky"? Always with my camera I grabbed it and propped it on the dash and at 7:37:24 Clicked. But with the strong glare and driving into the sun I knew my camera which was set on auto focus might focus on my dirty windshield instead of the distant cloud. I then activated the windshield wash and hoped I could see the cloud again further down the road. With the cloud back in view I clicked again and that's the one that went nuts! A few days went by before I down loaded my camera to the computer, I completely forgot about "the cloud" pic and when I saw the thumbnail view wondered what what is that? I was right, the first picture focused on my dirty windshield but the second pic there was "Cloudzilla"! After cropping out the sun and darkening the image I posted it on facebook thinking some might get a kick out of it. Never did I think that one of my worse quality images would gain world wide attention! My first hint of its popularity is when I saw links to my blog coming from the United Kingdom. After that ABC, The Weather Channel and an email from Boston's WHDH Channel 7 . Talking to one of the editors at Channel 7 she asked for my address which I gave her then asked: "Are you sending a film crew to talk about a picture of a cloud"? It must of been a slow news day I thought. And she said yes but I had to call her back because I live on a dead end street next to an elementary school and it would be dismissed at that time. So we planned on Stacy Boulevard next to the Fishermen's Memorial.

Another curious request came from the National Enquirer which I turned down. I figured if anyone saw it there it wouldn't be believable. I take pride in my photography and try to capture images just as I see them and allow the image to tell the story. 

I also included leftover images from the 2015 Gloucester Schooner Festival.

The first image and you can see the camera focused on the dirty windshield. The only edit on this was to add my watermark and reduce the size for this format.

 "Cloudzilla"

 The TV crew asked me to act as if I'm photographing the Fishermen's Memorial. I didn't "act"!

 Channel 7 producer and cameraman.

Gloucester's own "Adventure"

 On the bow!

 "Columbia"

 "Redbird"

 "Siren Song" rows by.

 Schooners and skyline.

 "Thomas E. Lannon"

 Working aloft!

 This twin engine two seat amphibian flew off into the sunset!