Kat Eye Studio

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The Final Fog, and a Winner!

I’m sure this won’t be the last fog photo to ever grace my blog, but it might just be one of the final fog photos of this year. Our days have turned sunny and warmer and the fog has been mist more often than not on my morning walks. Spring is coming! Enjoy this last little bit of the fog, knowing that the change of season is coming soon.

Who won the postcards, from the Exploring with a Camera: Fog link in? My dear friend Mosey of mosey along. Mosey, these will be in the mail to you soon!

Thank you ALL so much for linking in with your wonderful fog photos. I loved seeing them. Join me tomorrow for a brand new Exploring with a Camera topic, I’ve got a fun one planned and I can’t wait to share it with you. See you then!

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Share Your View: Fog

Yesterday I took my camera and spent time noticing the details of Parco di Monza as fog hid the greater world. I saw new things, like the moss and roots of this tree, because I was looking closer. I almost felt done with the fog this year, but I reviewed my images from yesterday’s photowalk and I’ve fallen in love with fog all over again.

Have you seen fog this last week? Did you find a favorite fog photo in your archives? It’s not too late to share your view! Even though I opened the linky in last week’s Exploring with a Camera post on Fog, you can still link up for another week. Come by the blog to see who’s already joined in. Visit some of these sites, there are some wonderful and creative fog photos included already.

Don’t forget there’s a giveaway of postcards too – I’ll draw a winner from those who link up. One lucky person will win a set of my Black and White postcards this week! I can’t wait to find out who it will be.

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Exploring with a Camera: Fog

Winter brings fog, one of the most wonderful weather patterns for photography. I know I’ve said it before here on the blog, but I love fog!  Because you can only see what is right in front of you, there is a delicious sense of mystery, of things slowly revealed.

Fog forms when there is high humidity along with a temperature that is very close to the dew point, it is essentially a low lying clound. You can read more about the science of fog here. It will form readily near bodies of water, like lakes and rivers, and in cooler temperatures. That’s why you often find fog early in the morning, dissipating as the weather warms up.

I’ve had the good luck to live two places now where fog is common: Oregon and northern Italy. It forms frequently here at my house in Italy, since we are right near the large Parco di Monza through which the Lambro River runs. A large, natural open space is a great source of fog – temperatures are always cooler in the park and the moisture is abundant from the landscape.

How can you use fog as an element in your photography? Here are a few ideas…

Fog provides a great backdrop, to capture a single element. A distracting background can be completely hidden in the fog. I use this feature to capture silhouettes, like the lead-in image of the post and this image below. The detail is highlighted by the blank backdrop. I also converted both of these to black and white, to heighten the contrast. One thing to be careful of with fog is underexposure, because the light white background will dominate your camera’s meter readings. Play around with overexposing your images just a little bit to compensate.

As you move closer to a object, fog slowly reveals. Vary your distance to a subject to create a different effect and feel in your images. The two images below are of the same tree on the same day, but taken at different distances. The first one,  farther away from the camera, creates that sense of mystery I was talking about earlier.

For both of these images, I again converted to black and white to heighten the contrast. Fog desaturates colors and your images can look almost black and white straight out of the camera, but converting to black and white can keep the focus on the shapes and tones rather than what little color remains.
You can use fog to get a sense of depth in your photo. While photographers often manipulate the depth of field through aperture, you can also create depth using the atmosphere. Fog creates depth by successively lightening the objects in the background as you move away from the foreground. You can see this effect in the image of the trees below.
Light fog can give a subtle effect, as in the next example. Along with placement, focus and color, the sense of the largest tree as the focal point is enhanced by the fading trees behind.
Heavy fog can make depth obvious, even at short distances. This image of a tree shows the effect of a heavy fog, the back of the tree already fading significantly compared to the front.
All of these examples so far are from farther away, what happens when you get up close? You can see condensation on the surfaces. Get in close to see what I call “beads of fog” on the smaller objects around you.
I’ve talked about what is revealed as you move through the fog, but also consider what is revealed as the fog is lifting. This image, taken looking up through the fog, shows the blue sky peeking through as the fog is burned away by the sun.

In this image, you can see how interesting it can be to capture the sun through the fog. This was an unusual day, because the fog seemed to be disappearing from the bottom up rather than the top down.

Finally, don’t forget about capturing the world in fog at night. You know I love night! Fog seems to amplify the artificial lights of night, creating a warm glow that is unlike any other night effect. I did no color or exposure correction on these, I liked them as they came out of the camera.

I know many of us are anxiously awaiting summer for the warmth and light of the sun. Instead of focusing on what you don’t have right now, take a moment to celebrate fog, one of the delightful gifts of winter.

Today I am going to try something different! As a welcome to the participants in the Scavenger Hunt from Ashley Sisk’s Ramblings and Photos, I’m going to open the linky today and keep it open for two weeks. (If you are in a blog reader, come over to the blog to see the link tool.) I’ll still post the linky next Thursday for Share Your View as usual, if you want some time to capture the fog or look through your archive.

In addition, I’m going to give away a set of my Black and White postcards by random drawing to one person who links in a fog photo. I haven’t given away a set of these yet on my blog, and since this set includes the foggy tree image it is the perfect time to give these away.

Thanks for sticking with me! Good luck with your fog photos, I look forward to seeing what you capture. You can find the code to copy and paste the Exploring with a Camera button on your blog here.

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Thankful for YOU!

Yes, you. No, don’t look behind you. If you are reading this, I’m talking to you. I want to thank you for joining me here. Thank you for reading my words, commenting on the blog, dropping me a note via email, visiting me on Mortal Muses, liking me on Facebook. Even the lurkers who read via feed – I see my stats, I know you are there. And I’m thankful for you. The stats are not just numbers, they are connections. Each time I post, each time you visit, we connect. Thank you!

This blog and the interactions with you all in the online world have brought me so many wonderful things – it truly has been an amazing journey. Today I want to not only share my image and words, but a little something “real” with you too. To thank you I’m going to giveaway some of my new postcards, the Burano Color set. To win, leave a comment here on the blog through Monday. I know it’s a holiday weekend in the US, so I’m giving you some extra time! I’ll do a random drawing and announce it on Tuesday.

(You can find more info on the photos I used for the Burano Color postcard set in the following posts: Color is Like Music, Be Still My Heart, What do these colors make you think of?, Complimentary Color, Color and Texture)

Now it’s time to Hop! Link your blog in below, and join us in visiting blogs from all over the world. (If you want to display the link tool on your blog too, grab the code here.)

Oh, and by the way, thank you!

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What’s new? (Giveaway time!)

Yesterday was the first really foggy morning in Parco di Monza of the season. I love fog, how it blankets everything and slowly reveals more as you move through it. I like this photo, which gives a hint of what the day is going to become, all sun and blue sky, while still showing the deep fog that exists down below. Maybe it’s an analogy for the direction in our lives, when we are having trouble seeing where we might be going. Instead of looking forward, try looking up.

I’m inviting you to take another look today too. I know many folks use blog readers – I do! – and don’t visit my actual site that often. I’ve made a number of changes lately, and so I’m inviting you to come by and take a look!

To motivate you, I’m going to have a little contest too… Come explore the site a little bit, then leave a comment with what “new” thing you specifically like on my blog, to enter to win. Contest will end on Sunday morning, 7am my time, and I’ll randomly select a winner from all of the comments that include something specific. If you are new to my blog, just comment on what you liked the first time you visited! I would love to hear your thoughts.

What will you win? Hopefully, a set of postcards, either those pictured below or one of my new sets, if they arrive soon! I ordered more postcards in September (I still owe some to a few of you, I haven’t forgotten) and they have been lost in the mail twice. I know, I wouldn’t believe it either if it hadn’t happened to me. So they should be reprinted and mailed this next week and I’ll be able to get them out to you. If they don’t arrive in a timely manner, I’ll find some other interesting Italian thing to give away to you. I have some ideas brewing!

So it’s kind of like a mystery giveaway – either the postcards or something behind door number two!