Lost In The Fog

I went out for a short drive this morning, nothing to do with photography, and there they were—all the sizes and shapes of tattered cloud you'd ever wish for inside a viewfinder, drifting across the rural landscape and mingling with thick fog. Everything appeared to be in motion, the clouds in a fair hurry while the fog crept doggedly over hillsides and woodlots. Passing a familiar barn, its massive roof resembled a black stone perched atop the mists, while the bulky outline of a farm tractor flashed by in a second through the open door. A bit farther along the sun emerged and for a bright minute burned like a soft yellow bulb through white curtains, before it was swallowed again. Everywhere, oak trees became more stately, and mysterious.

I certainly enjoyed those mental pictures, but I can't include them here because I didn't take my camera along. As we said when I was a kid, No Biggie (that's the predecessor of the fatuous No Problem). I'm able to walk and chew gum simultaneously, but sometimes you want to concentrate on a single thing, and that device can get in the way of inspiration. Besides, in the black hole of online images anything I shot would be appreciated for a nanosecond, then disappear as surely as that tractor.

And this morning, it was inspiration I needed. A double-shot of beautiful light to rouse me from the wintertime blues. A reason to keep looking, sans camera, in a world that's shrinking ever faster, sucking up subjects until there's nothing new, nothing worthy of photographing that hasn't already been seen dozens of times.

Mental landscapes, too, become veiled in fog, without familiar landmarks to suggest the right direction (men aren't supposed to ask for those, so we just continue stumbling along). Lucky are those who do stop to ask for assistance, or simply pause to read a sign. These are more numerous than you might imagine, so I'm leaving you with a quartet to contemplate the next time you're caught in a photographic whiteout. Perhaps they'll lead you to explore new and satisfying locations.

—On The Luminous Landscape, Mark Dubovoy's essay Everything Matters explores the small details in photography;
—on The Online Photographer, photographer Ken Tanaka offers his thoughts on photographic self-assessment in Ah, January, good reading in any month;
—on Strobist, David Hobby serves up different ways to use your photography in Giving Back With Your Camera;
—finally, also on The Luminous Landscape, fine art photographer Alain Briot discusses the subject of finding inspiration, in a series of essays called Reflections on Photography & Art.