Ode to the Fog


One of the things I love most about shooting in the Bay Area is the fog. I love the fog the way only a true outsider ever could. It lends softness and mystery to even the most ordinary things.

I shot the above photo while we were at Maverick’s, long after the fog had rolled out into the ocean (note to people who don’t live here: yes, you actually can watch it roll out into the ocean)(I KNOW). And I like it.

But to me, it doesn’t compare to this one, which I shoot hours earlier (and I do mean HOURS, we arrived at about 6am. In February. On a Saturday.) when the sun was still rising and the fog was thick.

You can almost-but-not-quite see the shape of the cloud here. I love the general softness from the fog, how the foreground is so much darker than the background, that though the people on the beach have clear outlines, the ones on the hill look like they could be ghosts. Of course this is also a focus choice, but mostly it’s the delicious, delicious fog.