i'm on cloud nine!!!

Tonight I checked email on my Hotmail account. Something that I don't do very often because that's my secondary email address.

To my big surprise, I received this email...


Your photo in our new cloud handbook?‏
From: ian@cloudappreciationsociety.org
Sent: Wednesday, 3 Dec, 2008 8: 39 PM
To: kakijalan@hotmail.com

Dear Ruziana,

We're emailing to see if you would like your photograph to appear in a brand new publication from The Cloud Appreciation Society.

In the spring of next year, we are producing a book called The Cloud Collector's Handbook, which will be a humorous and instructive tour of the skies that we hope will help convince the world at large of the beauty and wonder of clouds.

The book will be a pocket-sized publication, which cloudspotters can carry around with them, and will be beautifully designed with full-colour images throughout. It will also work as a sort of game: you collect points for the different clouds that they spot. The rarer the cloud, the higher the points.

We have been carefully going through the thousands of images on the society's photo gallery pages, and feel that your one, linked below, is a fantastic example of its type. If you were willing, we would love to include this image in the handbook:

http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/gallery/index.php?showimage=2924

Since the book is only pocket-sized, and we have so many photos that we want to include (around 120), all the images will end up being quite small. But readers would be able to refer to the relevant pages on the website to see your fine photo it in its full glory.

Would you like it to be included? We are not able to pay, but would give you a full credit on the page that it appears, and we would send you two copies of the book when it comes out in the spring. If you are not already a member of the Cloud Appreciation Society, we would, of course, give you life membership. It goes without saying that you would retain all copyright of your image.

If you’d like the image to be a part of this fantastic new handbook for cloudspotters, then do please email Ian Loxley, at this address, to:
A) say that you "authorise us to include this image, credited to you, in all editions of The Cloud Collector's Handbook" and
B) send a high-res version of the image.
We would obviously not reprint the photo anywhere else without your prior permission (though we would ask that it could be available (with full credit) to illustrate any reviews or articles about the handbook, when it is published).

Many thanks and very best wishes from,

Gavin Pretor-Pinney,
Founder,

and Ian Loxley,
Photo gallery editor,

The Cloud Appreciation Society
http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/



I pun apa lagi... Smile selebar-lebarnya. Too bad it's already 2 am otherwise I would be screaming happily to announce my new "celebrity" status to my sister and brother.

I AM EXTREMELY HAPPY! and proud :D

Who would have thought... a photo taken by chance, while peering out the window somewhere above the South China Seas (I think), would be selected for something like this?

I must say (walaupun this is considered masuk bakul angkat sendiri), that it is a beautiful shot... with the light, and puffy clouds. It's so out of this world. Just looking at it gives me a sense of serenity.

But this is all the great work of Allah SWT, who had created this wonderful world that we live in. It was with His grace that I was afforded the view and opportunity to capture it for others to see. I still remember the feeling when I first saw the sight... unbelievable amazement and rush of amazement and wonderment of His greatness. Subhanallah...

So friends... let me share this with you. I hope that you'll find the same joy as I did on that eventful day 2+ years ago...