Fog

Wednesday, December 10th, witnessed the perfect conditions to produce delicate clouds that blanketed Harrisburg. Fog. I love fog. I love to walk through it, smell it, watch it and use it as a compositional element in photographs. A mist that undulates, hiding and revealing elements of a scene. Isolating beautiful forms from distracting backgrounds. And softening the color pallet just enough to produce romantic monochromatic color images or soft Black and Whites.

As I crossed the Susquehanna River, on the way to an appointment, I saw the fog consuming it. I nearly crashed as my jaw dropped upon observing the perfect scene that I was missing. I got to my appointment, ran my errands and made my way back home, which is 2 blocks from the river front. I changed into some boots, grabbed my G9 and was out the door. As I approached the river I could tell the scene had changed, it was no longer as mystical as it had been 2 hours earlier. But there was still fog, not all hope was lost.

So I started shooting. Nothing was happening. I wasn't seeing the image. I thought it was mostly due to the diminishing water vapor. So I started walking, my goal was to walk across the Harvey Taylor bridge and shoot over the islands in the middle of the river. This would help eliminate the distracting view of buildings on the West shore. But as I went along I decided to try going to the lower walk way that sits right next to the waters edge. I descended the steps from the lower sidewalk right up to the water. This provided the needed change in perspective I was looking for.















It got me closer to the fog and changed my vantage point just enough to allow the remaining fog to isolate the islands, and their barren trees, from the man made structures on the other side. Cool. Very Cool! I shot for about 1/2 an hour until I decided that I had really covered this location. That was all the time I could allow anyhow, I needed to get back to my office and work.

I like shooting this type of subject with my Canon G9. I can shoot with iso's from 80-400 and get a very nice film like grain. Really reminds me of my days shooting Tri-x. I am always astounded when I view the images later, this little camera's 12 megapixels and great lens really resolve fine detail! One of the keys to using this camera, I have found, is to shoot as if you were shooting chromes, expose for the high lites- and nail the exposure. There is just enough latitude in the shadows that I can pull out a bit more usable detail than one might think. I can make very fine looking 12x18" prints.





Please follow this LINK to view a couple of other images from that afternoon.

While there you will get a glimpse of the changes that are coming to my website. Hope you enjoy!