Sunday morning I woke to some of the heaviest fog so far this fall. Along with the fog the temperature had dropped to 26 degrees and a light frost covered everything. The conditions at the first location I went to were not favorable. A grouping pilings from an old bridge had little to no fog around them. And as part of our annual flood control the water level had already lowered several feet.
So slightly disappointed I looked for other compositions. The first was this barn. However, it was still early and I could barely see 50 to 100 feet in front of me. My plan was to visit Round Lake State Park to scout the conditions and then return to the barn after that in hopes the fog would have thinned out enough to make a photo.
Round Lake did not disappoint as I was greeted with fog on the water and the morning sun lighting the trees across the lake. I set up my tripod to do a long exposure pines and larches, but this grouping of trees kept pulling me to take another look. The sun now had broken through and backlit the trees in this area. The frost on the trees glistened in the sunlight and the remnants of the fog moved slowly across the water.
After making this photo I packed everything and headed back to the barn. The sun by now had burned through most of the fog at the lake as well as the route back to the barn. My hope was that the fog around the barn would not have thinned out too much since it was so heavy earlier. As I pulled up to the barn’s location I was gratified my plan appeared to have worked. The extra time allowed the fog to lift just enough to reveal the barn while still masking several unwanted parts of the composition. Of the shots taken this one seemed the most promising.
