MONTEREY PINE FOREST IN FOG, PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA This print can be ordered securely online at a special discounted price. This print is available for a limited time at the very special price of $600. I am often asked on workshops how best to photograph fog. I personally find effectively rendering the ethereal atmospheric qualities of fog in a photograph to be very challenging. I have been fortunate over the years to make a few photographs I feel successfully convey the quiet mystery of fog. One of my favorites from among those images is Monterey Pine Forest in Fog, Pebble Beach, California. As I have told numerous workshop participants, the key to creating the illusion of fog in a photograph is having objects that vary in distance from the camera. The closer the object is to the camera lens the clearer it is rendered. As the objects recede into the fog they become more and more obscured, depending on the particular situation. If all objects in a photograph are at a similar distance from the lens, you can never create the illusion we experience as human beings. The photographic process records only the visual experience, but when we are physically within the fog we have many other senses that add to the feeling of fog. The next time you're in a foggy environment look straight up above you. The sky will appear as a bright white or light gray tone. There is no sense of fog because there are no points of reference of varying distance. When I made this image the fog was so thick and wet, I had to carefully wipe the front element of my view camera lens to remove the condensation that occurred while setting up the photograph. In addition, I had to wipe the lens between each and every one of the four exposures I made that afternoon. One of the things I liked about this particular grove of Monterey pines was the fact that some of the trees were quite close to the camera, while others were much more remote. In this photograph the foreground tree is only a short distance from the camera lens. It is rendered with a great deal of clarity. The fog adds increasing veils of diffusion as the trees disappear into the mist. No two exposures I made that afternoon were the same, as the fog was continually changing. Because of the dense fog the contrast was extremely low. I gave normal +2 development to the 4x5 Tri-X film to separate the subtle tones in the image. It is very challenging to keep the subtle values and reveal the illusion of fog when printing from this negative. If you have my first book, Quiet Light, you can see a reproduction (Plate 17), which will provide different subtleties of the image compared to the online digital reproduction. This silver gelatin, selenium toned, print is approximately 10x13", personally printed by me (as are all my prints), processed to current archival standards, signed, mounted, and matted to 16x20" on 100 percent rag museum board. Prints will be shipped by JULY 14, 2009. All prints are carefully prepared and packaged in specially designed protective shipping boxes, and shipped fully insured via UPS ground. The special discounted price is $600 – a $300 savings from the normal retail price of $900. Normally there is a long waiting period for John's original prints. |