Photography
Who Doesn’t Love a Foggy Day?
And perhaps a bit of mystery.
To answer the title question, not everyone! But I say, look again. The artist Henri Matisse said, “Derive happiness in oneself from a good day’s work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.”
I’m drawn to that quote because Matisse doesn’t say to disperse the fog, but to look into it, shine a light, see it for what it is, appreciate it. Fog softens things, accents them. It makes us look harder to see what’s there. Fog plays with light and shadow, changes the familiar, adds a bit of mystery.
It was early morning in Vermont when I took this photograph, on a walk above Killington. It was cold and quiet, just the birds and me. The sun was breaking through the fog, bringing fire to the maple tree. The promise of a beautiful and clear day lay ahead.
Fog is nothing more than a low-flying cloud. To be high up, to be among the clouds, is to watch the wind, to feel it, to see the fog swirl and ebb and flow. It brings a sense of the natural world that is somehow missing on a clear, cloudless day. I love a clear day too, don’t get me wrong, but the contrast is stark, and it is good to know both. This photograph was taken approaching the Snoqualmie Pass in Washington state.
Above the weather, looking into the valley from about 8,000 feet, near Manitou Springs Colorado. I’m drawn to this image for the way the wispy cloud casts a subtle shadow over the trees in the center, like a layer of gauze.
This photo was taken near the Alcove nature trail in the Colorado National Monument between Grand Junction and Fruita, Colorado. The elevation is about 6,000 feet. It was around 3:00 p.m. on an unusually foggy day. We were completely alone, bundled in scarves and parkas. The fog was like a blanket thrown over the landscape, muting every sound but the rushing wind.
My love of fog was tested in Ireland, when we went to see the magnificent Cliffs of Moher, only to discover a bank of fog rolling in from the North Atlantic, up the cliffs, onto the grassy promontory where we stood. The only sounds were the ever-present wind, the unseen waves crashing somewhere below, and the clang of a distant buoy. We had to leave before the fog lifted, but I do love the mystery of these photographs, with the lip of land descending into the gray abyss.
Not everyone was happy to have traveled thousands of miles to peer into the fog!
Here we’re looking toward Killarney, Ireland, from inside the Ring of Kerry. I was told the spire in the distance is St. Mary’s Cathedral. Not quite as foggy as the Cliffs of Moher, but foggy enough. Ireland is the greenest place I’ve been. The shape of the landscape is amazing. This photo reminds me of a scene from the 1954 film Brigadoon, a movie about an 18th century highlands village that comes to life one day every 100 years.
As much as I love the fog, I love a moonlit night. Beat writer and poet Jack Kerouac once wrote, “And when the fog’s over and the stars and moon come out at night it’ll be a beautiful sight.” I couldn’t agree more. This photograph was taken near Oak Harbor, Washington, on Whidbey Island, overlooking Skagit Bay just north of Seattle. We had just returned from a day trip when the clouds moved away from the moon to light the night sky.
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