Two days after my recent visit to Holland Bottoms Wildlife Management Area, I woke up to find a thick fog had rolled in overnight. This was not something I was expecting, and my first thought was “Gee, I wish I knew there was going to be some fog this morning. Oh well, maybe next time.”
But, as each minute ticked by, my compulsion to take advantage of the foggy conditions kept getting stronger and stronger until I decided I had to get out there and photograph something. The problem was I had no idea where to go. Since I didn’t know how long the fog would last (typically, it doesn’t last very long), I decided to head out for the closest place to home I knew: Holland Bottoms.
When I arrived, I was surprised to find about a half dozen cars already parked there. Actually, they were pickup trucks, so I immediately knew there were hunters somewhere out there. But, I figured they would be further back into the woods than I was going to go, so I was pretty certain that I didn’t have much to worry about.
Walking into a forested area just off the parking area, I started looking for groupings of trees that were shrouded in fog. I saw several scenes that filled the bill, but they just seemed too messy and chaotic to make for a good photograph. As I was about to pack it in and head back home, I spotted the group of trees in the image above. I set up my camera and tripod, framed up the scene, and pressed the shutter button.
When I opened the file on my computer, the picture looked fairly flat and two-dimensional, which is to be expected when shooting in the RAW format as I always do. But, a sense of depth was a vital component of the image, so I made several adjustments to the highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks to enhance the contrast and create the sense of depth that I saw with my eyes. I also increased the saturation and luminance of the grasses and leaves to provide a little color contrast to an otherwise rather monotone picture.
My camera, the Canon 5D Mark IV, has a native 3:2 aspect ratio, and that is the aspect ratio I typically capture my photos in. However, there were trees on the right edge of the frame that just didn’t feel like they belonged, and I needed to remove them from the scene. Playing with different crop options, I decided a 1:1 square aspect ratio provided the framing I wanted. Adjusting the location of the crop, I was able to remove the trees from the right side of the frame as well as remove some unnecessary elements at the top of the frame to create this final image.