With a disappointing weekend of weather (and an enforced stay indoors due to a new sofa being delivered…which I can’t complain too much about given the state of the old one…) and a half-term off with the kids to look forward to (no sarcasm!), I fully anticipated a quiet week ahead with very few opportunities for photography. How wrong I was! After eagerly watching the weather forecast, hoping for some late morning fog, it looked promising for Tuesday morning. The forecast was for a pretty much widespread fog, covering the whole of the south east. The only question now: can I get up and get the children ready and out the door in time to catch the fog in Deal?
I’ve had my eye on Deal in the fog for sometime now. I’ve been intrigued by the possibilities around the pier, with the fog enveloping it and giving it that air of a concrete road to nowhere. In recent years, I’ve appreciated just how rare it is for this kind of occurence. Either I’ve just been unlucky in recent years, or the fog has always been something that occurs a handful of times a year and, even then, trying to predict when and where is a fool’s errand. So not only have I been keeping my fingers crossed for fog, I’ve been keeping my fingers crossed for fog in Deal. Given it’s a 40 minute drive from our house, there is always the risk of getting in the car, driving through the fog and finding…nothing on my arrival at this little seaside town. Fortunately, this was not one of those occasions…
After driving through thick fog on the A2 (and counting the number of cars without lights on, despite the visibility being down to a few metres), we arrived in Deal and were presented with the kind of foggy conditions I had hoped for. Armed with only my XT-3, no tripod, no zoom lenses, just a 23mm and 33mm prime, I set off to see what I could capture. With my children in tow too of course.
After belatedly realising I had knocked the focus mode switch on the front of the camera (thank god I noticed that before too long), I started wondering around the beach to see what I could capture. This was one of my first shots:
23mm, f5.6, 1/250, ISO160
Of course, the obvious shots were the first shots I took, but this is the kind of shot I had envisioned when I imagined the fog descending onto Deal. In terms of the post-processing, I like my fog images to be tinted slightly green as I think it gives it more of a mysterious vibe to the image, like it’s something out of a horror movie. Otherwise, I keep the editing fairly light and just accentute the softness (so low contrast, minus clarity and very slightly minus on the dehaze).
After pottering around under the pier for a bit, I headed up (with the children, honestly, I didn’t forget them!) onto the pier itself and took a walk along to the pier head. At thist time of the morning, there were a few people milling around, but not so many it was crowded. This really helped in terms of picking out individuals or couples walking along the pier, and of course the fog helped to simplify the background and obscure any others that were in shot.
23mm, f8, 1/500, ISO500
23mm, f8, 1/500, ISO160
23mm, f8, 1/500, ISO400
As I got to the end of the pier walking back, the fog started to lift and we took a walk along the beach towards the fishing boats moored near the road. I kinda figured that was it for the foggy conditions and that the sun was going to start breaking through and it’ll be a typical bright sunny day.
However, just when I figured the day was done and we’d wonder off and grab some snacks and disappear, the fog came in again, much to the annoyance of the kids who I think, by this stage, were heartily sick of me continuing to drag them back to the pier to get yet more shots of it obscured by the fog. Nevertheless, I persisted. Of course, I wasn’t the only one…
33mm, f8, 1/500, ISO160
33mm, f8, 1/500, ISO160
Much as I enjoyed hanging around the pier, the kids were obviously getting bored so we took a walk along the promenade, and I’m glad we did as I think some of the best shots of the day were taken as we walked away from the pier and looked back on the people walking through the fog. With the sun behind them (albeit also obscured by the fog) the people suddenly became nothing but a series of silhouettes, ambling towards us. Like something out of a horror movie, these shadowy forms ambled towards us, through the fog, making for some really interesting opportunities. Whilst I was happy with the shots I got on the pier, the shots along the promenade were, I think, better and really had a lot of atmosphere to them. Given the silhouette effects and the nature of the light, many of them I switched up into black and white, there was little in the way of colour anyway, so it seemed like a natural switch.
33mm, f8, 1/500, ISO160
33mm, f8, 1/500, ISO160
33mm, f8, 1/500, ISO160
After our walk along the promenade, we headed into the town centre to have a browse around. By this stage the fog was starting to lift and the sun was now shining through, leaving a beautiful morning, but taking all that lovely fog away. Regardless, it was a pretty spectacular morning on the seafront, with plenty of compositions to work with (I think I took around 370 photos in the end!). The scenary that morning certainly made up for a disappointing weekend and that half-term week of entertaining the children did present some photography opportunities after all. So everyone was happy…well, maybe not the kids. I think they’ve forgiven me now…but we’ve still got a few days of school holidays left yet, so jury is out I guess…
A few more photos from the day are in the gallery below, I’ve managed to cull my shots in Lightroom down to around 190, but I still need some work to do to cut that down a bit. I’ve tried to limit the gallery below to the best bits. Let me know what you think!
ian
