Into the Mist: Black & White Fine Art Print, Boardwalk Disappearing into the mist on a foggy morning, Lake Johnson buy Park, Raleigh, NC

The boardwalk of Lake Johnson Park disappearing into the mist.
Printed on fine art matte paper using archival quality pigment-based inks.

The Story Behind The Image:
It started like any other Tuesday morning. Up at 6:00am, a shower followed by a quick breakfast. The goal was to roll out the door between 6:30am and 6:45am to take my son to school. As I walked into the kitchen to start coffee and make buy breakfast, I looked out the window to discover the woods behind the house had disappeared in dense fog.

I had to act quickly. With the coffee brewing, I dashed up to my office to grab my camera bag. Thankfully, I had recently charged my batteries and had empty SD cards loaded in the camera. In short, my camera was ready to go. I hurried downstairs and informed my son we would be leaving as soon as possible because I wanted to stop at Lake Johnson Park near his school after dropping him to take some pictures.

We were in the car and on the road before 6:30am. Driving was a little nerve racking, given the dense fog, but I knew what lay ahead, if I could drop my son at school, loop around to the park, and find a suitable subject before the fog cleared. My luck held! I made it to the park and was on the trail before sunrise (just barely).

One of the unique features of this park is a boardwalk that crosses the lake connecting the main parking lot and office with a smaller remote parking lot. The boardwalk also links the lake loop trail on either side, thereby enabling you a choice of trail length. The addition of the boardwalk provides three distance options: 1.5-mile loop of the west end of the lake, 2.8-mile loop of the east end, or circumnavigate the whole lake at just over 4 miles. I have been wanting to shoot the boardwalk for some time because I love the leading lines it provides. Unfortunately, on a typical day there is just some much around the lake that there simply isn't an uncluttered composition to be had. Today would be different. The thick fog and dawn light meant you could not see the far side of the lake. The boardwalk simply disappeared into the fog. I situated myself at the edge of the lake near the beginning of the boardwalk. I framed up the shot so to capture the walkway and its mirror reflection in the still lake. You could just make out a faint outline of the far shore. It was still pretty dark which meant a slow shutter speed, making a tripod a must. As I often do, I bracketed my exposures to assure that I have a well-exposed image once I get back to my computer. The final image I selected was shot at 1/6 of a second at f8. Given the scene had very little color I chose to convert to it B&W.