Photography literally means "light writing," and a better definition of the importance of light in producing images cannot be found. The quality and nature of the light in which one photographs makes a world of difference in the way a photographic image appears. Nothing could be more demonstrative of this concept than the pictures that I made during my recent trip to Redwoods National Park. Redwoods is different than most national parks, in that it is really a collection of three state parks in California, Prairie Creek, Del Norte, and Jedediah Smith, which are jointly managed by the California State Park System and the National Park Service. There is not much in the way of hotels or restaurants in the region, and what is there is on the rudimentary side, but the landscape and the redwood forests are astonishingly beautiful. Having been a bit south of the area in Mendocino recently, I knew that the summer weather was likely to be perfect for landscape photography, since fog along the coast seems to be present during a good part of many of the summer days. So I decided to go to Redwoods and see what might unfold for me.
The days turned out to be filled with fog and a little bit of light, perfect conditions for forest photography. In fact, for me, it seemed at times to be a fantasy land, in which I could find photos almost endlessly, from early morning until late evening. The only thing that stopped me from taking pictures was my own energy level, as I seemed to get exhausted at times from repeatedly setting up my tripod and making hundreds of exposures each day. Unlike bright, sunny days, which produce far too much contrast and blotchy light in a forest setting, dense fog simplifies pictures, blurs out the confusing, often tangled background of a photo, allowing you to highlight specific aspects of a scene that in harsher light would not be much of a photograph at all. I live for days like these, which are filled with so much atmosphere that they become imbued with overtones and feelings that strike a chord deep within anyone who views them. A fog-drenched forest is elemental at some very instinctive level that almost everyone responds to, and it makes life very much easier for the photographer who wants to produce images that resonate with the viewer. Being out in the forest, hiking along empty, foggy paths early in the day, was an especially great pleasure for me. It seemed as if I could spend an endless amount of time there if the weather conditions remained like that (they don't, unfortunately) forever. People often laugh when I tell them I want overcast, or foggy, weather on a photo trip, since nearly everyone "normal" hopes for bright sunny days. Not this photographer. Give me a foggy, overcast day any time, and I am ecstatic. This trip turned out to have many such days and the picture-making could not have been better!
