Clouds are among the most common photographic metaphors. As far back as the 1920s, Alfred Stieglitz, the man responsible for establishing photography as a fine art, was making images of clouds as representations of the feelings within us. I saw this image of strange clouds hovering over a Bruges sunset as a metaphor for the perpetual interplay between life and death. I abstracted the old Flemish buildings, with their quaint embellishments outlined against the sky, by underexposing them. They represent the homes of those who are no longer with us. The golden sunset is a metaphor of sheer energy and vitality – symbolic of life. The clouds, particularly the largest one, are the keys to the image. They are actually not clouds at all, but contrails from jet aircraft in various stages of dissolution. They appear haunted, wispy, insubstantial and shroud-like, almost transparent. To me, they represent the dead of Bruges, particularly when juxtaposed with the blackened hulks of the houses they once lived in.