Distinctly indistinct
You’ve seen pictures in this column of bald cypresses and bulrushes, but not the two together. You’ve also never seen a picture in these pages of the kind of weather shown here now, so you’ll understand why I couldn’t pass up this first opportunity for blog fog. Because the mist on the morning of December 9 made everything look so indistinct, I’ll point out that you can find the bulrushes forming a dark green band across the bottom of the picture; in the upper left is the most prominent of the bald cypresses, whose “needles,” like those in the close-up of August 11, have turned warm colors.
Although fog is rare in Austin, in the first half of December we had several. I photographed this one at Laguna Gloria, once a private estate on a cove of the Colorado River, but for decades now a home to an art museum.
© 2011 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
The fog makes everything look soft and lovely. It changes the world.
Skip220
December 18, 2011 at 5:39 AM
It does indeed; that’s why I was so eager to take pictures in it.
Steve Schwartzman
December 18, 2011 at 6:25 AM
A beautiful photo of one of my favorite weather phenomena. It’s hard to communicate the silence of fog or falling snow in a photograph, but you’ve done a splendid job.
shoreacres
December 18, 2011 at 6:53 AM
Thank you. I sometimes mention to people down here, who have had little experience with snow, my memory of shoveling still-falling snow as a boy in New York, and how emphatic the silence is, punctuated only by the scraping of the shovel.
Steve Schwartzman
December 18, 2011 at 7:27 AM
Fog truly makes the world magical!
Bonnie Michelle
December 18, 2011 at 7:40 AM
Agreed—and who could pass up a little extra morning magic?
Steve Schwartzman
December 18, 2011 at 7:50 AM
Steve, even though I’m far north of Austin and surrounded by ponds and lakes, foggy days aren’t common. We get a season of fog in early autumn when the morning air is cold and the lakes still warm but it burns off soon after sunrise.
The days where the fog lingers are mid-winter when snow covers the ground and a storm front significantly increases the humidity and warms the air to the mid-30s or higher. The fog might last all day then or coat every branch with hoar frost like this: http://www.words4it.com/?p=773
Those are the magical days when everything around me looks totally different. The light is funky, but who cares?! Gotta grab the camera and plunge into it.
I love your blog. Thanks for sharing your incredible photos with us.
Douglas Peterson
December 18, 2011 at 12:14 PM
I wish we’d occasionally get a long-lasting and magical fog that coats the foliage with frost; you can bet that I’d be out there with my camera playing in it. But even picture-loving me wouldn’t want half a year of winter (a few days of which I experienced in East Lansing in 1967).
I’m pleased that you find this blog to your liking. Readers, I encourage you to check out Douglas Peterson’s many fine images of nature.
Steve Schwartzman
December 18, 2011 at 2:22 PM
Oh, there’s nothing like ‘fog photography’! Nothing beats the atmosphere and mystery of shooting when the whole world becomes indistinct. This one is superb, and I love the muted colours…
cameravagrant
December 20, 2011 at 12:46 PM
I’m glad your enthusiasm for this picture isn’t as muted as the scene shown in it. I just wish I had more chances to do fog photography here.
Steve Schwartzman
December 20, 2011 at 12:57 PM
[…] I was traipsing around the grounds of Laguna Gloria on the foggy morning of December 9, I found myself surrounded at times by some healthy (for the […]
Unexpected—and for many people still unwelcome—color « Portraits of Wildflowers
January 7, 2012 at 5:14 AM
[…] out a photograph from 2007. For a less clear view (that’s a novelty, right?) you can see a bald cypress in fog. And if you’d like to exercise your imagination, there’s even a bald cypress […]
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