A heavy fog brings an enhanced sense of calm to our local green space while simultaneously veiling visual distractions. These conditions facilitate the sort of quiet contemplation that recharges mental batteries.
Our local green space in fog. Photo: © Donald J. Rommes
There's been a recent change in the weather in the Pacific Northwest. Warm days have given way to cool mornings with heavy fog that clears in the early afternoon. Winter rains are not far off.
After several consecutive days of morning fog, it finally occurred to us to take advantage of the cool temperatures and soft light and walk to a local green space with our cameras. After an easy 25 minute stroll, we arrived at this little park where the sidewalk curves away from the road and around a grassy field. Only about 100 yards long, tall bushes partly separate the field from the adjacent road a mere twenty yards away.
The C-shaped periphery of the green space is planted with flowering trees whose leaves turn red and orange in fall. Three more of these trees provide shade in summer but now drop their red leaves on the wooden park bench. Apparently. no one has sat there recently.
Just beyond the flowering trees is a remnant of a forest that was cleared to create our neighborhood decades ago, The fog veils the empty space behind the thin row of remaining trees and thus hints at the forest's former glory.
A small stand of birch trees in the veiling fog hints at the larger forest that existed before the neighborhood was established. Photo: © Donald J. Rommes
No one else was in the little park. The air was heavy with moisture and the grass wet with condensation. A slight breeze occasionally stirred the fog, but the leaves remained still. We had lots of time. We could linger as long as the conditions persisted.
Conditions were perfect for photography. We separated and wandered slowly among the colorful trees, each of us looking for compositions that pleased us.
Photography is a contemplative exercise—especially the way we practice it. As landscape photographers with the goal of producing large prints for healthcare, we tend to be slow and deliberate. That pace, and the "focus" on refining a pleasant composition, tends to clear the mind of the constant, mundane, mental distractions that require so much energy to suppress.
The addition of mist elevates landscape photography almost to a meditation.
The vibrant color of leaves fades to pastel as they recede into the fog. Photo: © Donald J. Rommes
The first image may be more abstract than representational. It doesn't visually define the trees. There are no tree trunks visible and very few branches can be seen. Still, we think the misty image is recognizable as trees in autumn, and the veiling fog adds mystery—not the scary type, but the "I wonder what the trees look like over there" type of mystery.
From the center of the field, looking away from the road and towards the remaining tall trees of the former forest, I noticed the red leaves outlining an oval shape and moved to a position where the oval was well-framed by red.
Red leaves resemble Japanese lanterns arranged around an oval clearing that reveals misty woods beyond. I could have wished for a bit more symmetry in the leaf arrangement, but this is what nature offered. Who was I to argue? Photo: © Donald J. Rommes
It is pretty common that compositions get simpler with study. Things that don't add anything to the composition are excluded by slight tweaks in the framing and the subject is more clearly defined by a process of elimination. Eventually, something like the one below might be framed—a photo of a place reduced to colorful leaves and fog.
Leaf and branch detail with out-of-focus background in heavy fog. Photo: © Donald J. Rommes
The fog endured longer than we could, so after a couple of hours, we turned back toward home. We hoped we got a photograph or two that would be a pleasant visual distraction for someone in a hospital. But even if we weren't successful this time, we felt refreshed and energized from the time spent in our foggy little green space.
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