Morning fog by the reservoir

The fog had not lifted by seven. Everything past the second lamp post simply stopped existing, and the path felt shorter because there was nothing ahead to walk toward.

I brought the old rangefinder and a roll I had been saving for a clear day. That felt like the wrong decision for about ten minutes, and then it felt like the only one. Fog does something to distance. The far bank becomes a rumour. The water, usually busy with reflections, goes flat and pale like an unprinted page.

What the morning sounded like

Sound travels strangely in weather like this. A car door half a mile away seemed close enough to touch, while my own footsteps on the gravel were swallowed almost immediately. Somewhere out on the water a heron complained once and then thought better of it.

I counted the lamp posts on the way out — fourteen — and on the way back I counted thirteen. One of them is still out there, I suppose, keeping the fog company.

Eleven frames

Most of the frames will be grey on grey. I know this already, and it does not bother me as much as it would have a year ago. The point was not really the photographs. The point was to be out before the joggers and the dog walkers and the noise, to stand somewhere that belongs to nobody for half an hour.

When the sun finally burned through, it happened all at once: the far trees, then the jetty, then a fisherman who must have been there the whole time. I put the camera away. Some things are better left on the inside of your eyes.