A Foggy Day, Not Quite London-Town

We don't often have fog up here. Not like the West Coast, or London, or even November in Montreal. Something about the weather conditions just don't line up properly most of the time.

So, you can imagine my surprise this morning to wake up and look out on a lot of...nothing, really. Just a lot of bright grey fog where my neighbourhood should be.

Normally on a Sunday, my inability to see my hand in front of my face outside wouldn't pose much of a problem, as Sunday tends to be a "stay inside and do chores around the house" kind of day. But, given that I was supposed to be heading out for a going-away brunch on this particular morning, the fog was a bit more of an issue. Thankfully, by the time I was actually ready to go, it seemed to have lifted enough to at least drive safely. That was all good and fine uptown, but once I started heading down the hill to Old Town...not so much.

Originally, I thought it might be a good photo opportunity, fog over the lake with some houseboats or something. Unfortunately, the fog was so thick one could barely see the lake, and certainly not the houseboats. In fact, you couldn't see past the first row of boats in the local marina. The houseboats are a couple of hundred metres further out...there.


Still, driving around for a bit did allow me to find some good photo ops of things other than houseboats. Regular boats, for example.


Fog can be a photographer's best friend, or their worst nightmare. It all depends on the look you're going for. For example, normally three boats tied to a dock wouldn't be my first choice of subject. It's kind of blah, the boats are shiny aluminum, there's not much going on. On a foggy day though, when the sun is to one side, most of the colour gets drained out of the picture and it becomes a far more interesting subject. Here, the stillness of the water adds to the effect. Overall, I have to say I really like this one.

Now, in most places, the fog rolls in, it sticks around for a while, and then it clears out for the rest of the day. In...Out. Today though, it kept coming in, moving out, blowing around - generally being unpredictable every five or ten minutes. This constant shifting allowed for some interesting visual opportunities. For example, this morning the shot below wouldn't have been possible, because the sun would have been behind me, so all the camera would have seen was fog, and nothing else. By early afternoon however, the sun had swung around so it was between me and the island. Combine that with the fog being caught midway between blowing in, and rolling out, and we have a sharply focused foreground (love that dock!) with pockets of fog obscuring the island in the middle ground, and a clear sky in the distance. Sweet.