With any luck, I get one photo like this a year. Where I live, the weather conditions rarely bring fog so when I see it I'm inclined to go out looking to make moody images. Young kids in my household have me up and out of the house early every morning anyway. The question is whether or not the fog will hang around long enough for me to get out and make a few dozen frames after taking care of morning family duties.
Why is this important in the context of the photo? There is often far more effort involved in making a photo than just framing it and activating the camera shutter. Sure, sometimes I just stumble on a scene at the right time with just the perfect light and the photo is right there to be had. That's a rare occasion though. Most often I have to work it into my life to be in the right place, at the right time with the right conditions. It's really as simple as paying attention and having some ideas in my head that I want to execute when I look out my window and see the right conditions. In this case, the delayed morning actually worked in my favor. The fog was just starting to break so the sun was kissing the cattails in the foreground and setting them off as an interesting subject.
After some editing I really like this color toning as something that could go in many types of settings. However, when I went to soft proof this for printing I realized that my color toning was going to be incredibly hard to reproduce on my favorite papers. But that's a can of worms for another time; and yes, I will do a full printing steps and considerations video this year...soon, I promise.
