Early Riser For A Change

 I've been in a bit of a creative funk lately.  Partly due to working on writing for some projects, I haven't been doing any thing photographically that's notable.  Some of the places that I really enjoyed taking a camera to have lost their attraction because of the damage from last fall's hurricane Helene.  I used to be an early riser back when I was working, as I was usually up by 6 am.  These days, it's a rare day that I am out of bed before 8.  Well, this morning was different - I was awake early, and looked out the window and saw that we had some thick fog outside. I got dressed, grabbed a camera bag and was out the door by 6:30.   

Because we are in the mountains, it's not unusual to have low-level fog in the mornings, and usually it's gone before 9 am, or at least so attenuated that it's not worthwhile going out in search of some good foggy scenes. I could see that this morning was different, so I grabbed my bag with the Nikon Zfc to get some instant gratification if I saw anything that was interesting.  This morning was just what I needed to get back in the groove.  I was full of energy as the fog cloaked familiar scenes into mysterious tableaus.  

My Nikon Zfc had a TTArtisans 35mm f/1.4 manual focus lens attached, and it was the perfect combination for this morning.  For one, auto-focus lenses hunt around in fog, so just keeping the lens at infinity and f/4 to f/8 was all that I needed to do. I shot at ISO 100 and 200 for the most part, so handheld shots were possible.  The thing about fog is that if reflects and scatters a lot of light, so it's actually brighter than you think because above the cloud bank, it's a perfectly clear sky.  Unless of course, it's at night. I was prepared to work quickly, because the fog could dissipate at any time.  So, in the span of about an hour, I drove and visited several sites that I felt would be interesting, and they were!

My first stop was just down the road from my house, at the Weaverville Mulch Yard.  The mountains of mulch looked like a mountainous view, with the diffused light creating silhouettes of mulch piles.

My next stop was a little over a mile away at lake Louise Park.  There, the water and the fog created a very special combination of diffused light and reflection.

After that, I ventured right into Weaverville, and shot some street scenes, but the views into the nature park were the most rewarding.

I then drove over to Reems Creek Road, and the old Balcrank factory building was dissolved in the mist, much to my delight.

A little farther on Reems Creek Road, I stopped at the Karpen Soccer park and was happy to see that a lot of the damage along Reems Creek had been ameliorated.  There were some great views of the creek and the surrounding vegetation that caught my eye, especially the bamboo thicket on the opposite side of Reems Creek.

In the span of a little over an hour, I shot a lot of images in b&w, and I am quite happy with what I got. There are a lot more excellent images other than the ones  shown here. The Nikon Zfc really did the job. Sometimes it just takes getting up early to set the day off to a good start.  Carpe diem, they say.