Foggy days
Foggy day at Lily Pond
Heavy fog has blanketed the Hudson Valley today making for some interesting photographic opportunities. We have had some very humid rainy days this past week and the ground is literally saturated. When the ground is saturated, most often the air immediately above the ground will also be holding as much water vapor as is possible at that temperature. The amount of water vapor the air can hold is called “capacity” and “capacity” is dependent on the temperature of the air. The warmer the air is, the more water vapor it can hold. As the temperature decreases, the capacity decreases and we reach a point where the water vapor condenses around minute dust particles in the air causing fog. That temperature is what the weather folks refer to as “dew point”. Well, today, we have exceeded the dew point and the water vapor has indeed condensed into a ground layer cloud we call “fog”. The first shot was taken through a forest stand surrounding a small pond in Harrian State Park called Lily Pond. Yes, you’ll have to take my word for it, there is indeed a pond behind all those trees.
St. Johns in the Wilderness Church Nikon Zfc with Z 26mm prime lens 1/25 sec, f/11, ISO 100
Foggy conditions make for an ethereal moody image such as this church in Harriman State Park. The fog was dense enough that the view further away from me than the building itself is pretty much obscured. The lighting was muted enough that shooting at 1/25 sec to capture enough light required the use of a tripod.
Foggy view of Lake Kanawauke in Harriman State Park Nikon Zfc with Z 26mm Prime 1/10 sec, f/11. ISO 100
My final landscape shot of today was at Lake Kanawauke. Once again the fog added to the effect of the pond framed by the forest. There is really never a “bad” day to be out in nature. Each day has a different view to offer, a different experience with often a different cast of characters. This view will be totally different in several days under bright sunny skies, different still with the blazing hues of Autumn and yet another morphological change as we head into the scene blanketed in snow in the winter. There should never be a “been there, done that” moment when there is a chance to get out and enjoy the natural world.
Focus stacked image of Purple crown vetch at Kanawauke Nikon Z8 with Nikon Z105mm micro lens 1/800 sec, f/8, USI 9000
Just to prove that all was not gloomy on this foggy day, I’ve included a photograph of one of the more common spring/smmer wildflowers in the valley, the Purple crown vetch. Patches of this beautiful flower were found all around the area where the shot of Lake Kanawauke above was taken. In order to capture all the detail, I made multiple exposures of the flower at different focal points and then compressed them into the image above in an editing program called Luminar Neo. By “focus stacking”, I was able to capture all the fine detail of this bloom (which is about the size of a quarter) in spite of the dim lighting. Ain’t technology grand?
Tech Tip - For landscape photography, I change over from my standard “Manual” settings to “Aperture Priority”. I then set the ISO to the lowest my camera body will go (usually 64 or 100), set the aperture to f/11 to give me good depth of field without too much “aberration”, and let the camera decide upon the proper shutter speed. This is often slow enough to require a tripod or steady hand. Occasionally, I have to go back to manual settings to bump up the shutter speed is the wind is causing too much movement in the trees and/or water.
