I was up in the dark this morning getting my kids ready for school. I clicked on NPR just in time to get a quick weather update: Unseasonably warm with dense fog in the morning. I felt a little tingle.
Like anyone following photographers on social media, I’ve seen a million landscape photographs in the fog, and yet, despite the glut, I like almost all of them. Why do so many of us love shooting in the fog? Why do I still love shooting in the fog?
I’ll actually try to answer the questions I just asked. The best I can come up with without thinking too hard is this:
Separation. I think as photographers we’re always trying to organize things in our heads, and in our frames. Fog eliminates a lot of information. Whatever is in the foreground, separates from the background. It's probably the same thing that has us shooing portraits and products on cyc walls and seamless paper. Here is the thing I want you to see, that other stuff is less important.
Instant mood: Sort of explains itself. You’re not a dummy, you know what I mean.
Lighting: Fog is a big beautiful soft box.
TK ?? Put your reason here:
Better photographers than me have been making photographs in fog for as long as there have been cameras you can use outside, and some photographers are so good at it (Noah) I feel like I should Venmo them a few dollars whenever I do it. But, we are exposed to SO many photographs now, and usually, when everyone is shooting the same (or similar) things and you see it popping up over and over again in your algorithm, you get sick of it. You’ll turn on it. You’ll avoid it in your own work.
And yet, not the fog. Maybe never the fog? I don’t know. I love it. I even tried to shoot a studio portrait series in the fog. I bought a fucking fog machine. It did not work.
Here are a few of my foggy photos that I think did work:
While writing this I was listening to:
Yes! Snow definitely works in the same way right? Separation, simplification, and the unfamiliar.
A tree in the snow stands alone.
I wonder if people are less (or more?) affected by photos in the fog or snow if they live in a place with an abundance of fog or snow?
Great post! I love thinking about stuff like this — why do we make the pictures we make? Fog is mysterious and otherworldly and I think that's what attracts me to it. I'm looking at Winter Pictures right now and I think there are comparisons between them: fog and snow make familiar landscapes look foreign and that's unusual and appealing. And you're right about Noahs — he's the best!