Puffy Skies Over Tranquil Waters: Near Epes, Alabama

Some days in Alabama, the sky is just showing off.

On a perfect spring afternoon near Epes in Sumter County, the sky put on exactly that kind of show — a deep, saturated blue from horizon to horizon, packed with fluffy white cumulus clouds that drift and pile and billow in that particular way that only a warm spring day with just enough moisture in the air can produce. They are the clouds of childhood drawings, of lazy afternoons lying in the grass looking up, of every good memory anyone has ever had of a perfect outdoor day.

Below them, the Alabama countryside matches the sky's mood entirely. A tranquil farm pond sits in the middle distance, its still surface catching the blue of the sky above and the fresh spring green of the trees lining its far bank — trees that are just fully leafed out in that vivid, almost electric green that only lasts a few weeks in early spring before deepening into the darker greens of summer. A broad, lush meadow sweeps from the pond to the foreground, the grass bright and full, scattered with small yellow wildflowers that catch the afternoon sun in tiny points of gold.

It is the kind of scene that stops you mid-drive and makes you pull over. Which is exactly what happened here.

Shot from the roadside near Epes, Alabama, "Puffy Skies Over Tranquil Waters" captures the Alabama countryside at its most open, its most colorful, and its most purely, simply beautiful — a reminder that some of the best photography happens not at famous overlooks or well-known destinations, but on ordinary roads through ordinary country on extraordinary days.

Bring the bright, cheerful beauty of Alabama's spring countryside home with this museum-quality fine art photography print by Bama Price — available as metal, canvas, or glossy paper.