This is one of my definitive “living on the coast” shots. Living opposite this view, I watch it relentlessly, and over the months I’ve photographed this scene more times than I can count. Yet, despite that constant observation, this particular day was different. The wind shifted direction suddenly, and a fantastic, dense sea mist came rolling in, blowing hard across the land. Within minutes, the trees, the local people, and the distant boats simply dissappeared.

I had only just returned from a trip into town when this happened, but as soon as the fog struck, I knew I had to move fast. I grabbed my kit, went back out, and dedicated several exposures to watching elements of life dissapearing into this freezing mist—it was great. I’ve posted a few other perspectives from this misty session in the archives, but this frame remains a personal favourite for how it captures that sense of complete isolation.

I wanted to keep the figures in silhouette without losing the texture of the mist. The 20D held up perfectly in the freezing cold. I zoomed the 17-40mm in to 40mm and used f/16 to try and keep everything as sharp as possible through the fog. Shooting at 1/800 and ISO 400 gave me the right exposure to pull off that moody, high-contrast look I’ve been aiming for.

I’ll post others from this series later as well… and, as always, let me know what you think…

capture date | 19.03.2005
camera | Canon EOS 20D
lens | 17-40mm f/4 L Series
focal length | 40mm
aperture | f/16
shutter speed | 1/800
shooting mode | manual
exposure bias  | +0.0
metering mode | pattern
ISO | 400
flash | no
image quality | RAW
RAW converter | Photoshop CS
cropped? | no