Fog

Friday Wrap #33

It was foggy out this morning when I went to drive child #4 to school. I love photographing nature in the fog. Contrast, shadow, diffuse light, and all the fun technical challenges that goes with it. Like most things in photography, there are no “perfect conditions” or “right way.” Experiment, try, and try again.

The biggest challenge with photography in the fog is timing. You have no control of when it will happen. You have no say in where fog will form. You don’t know how long the conditions will remain. The only things you can do are plan ahead for possible locations that might look interesting if it is foggy outside, and have your camera ready. A weather forecast might help too, but those are dodgy at best.

The magic of fog is it visually removes or de-emphasizes background objects and softens unimportant things. It eliminates some of the distractions, and leaves the items right in front of your face for you to pay attention to.

Brain fog is similar. I suffer from this frequently, usually in the morning. It’s more pronounced when I have had less sleep. Sometimes a small glass of orange juice helps sharpen things up. Coffee works too. Tag team the two of them and it usually jolts me into an alert state. I could sleep more, but then there would be less time in the day to do things, or not do things.

The difference between brain fog and atmospheric fog is what is eliminated and what is kept. Atmospheric fog eliminates the background, keeping what’s closest in focus or view. Brain fog blurs everything and leaves you to stumble or struggle on what to focus on. Good thing for notes and notebooks. A quick note when you think of something works well to remind you when struggling. I have a Leuchtturm1917 notebook which is good for this. Doesn’t fit in my pocket well so I need to get a smaller one. Note, that isn’t a product sponsorship, I just like the books. Combined with my Tombow pencil (again, not a product placement), it’s a good way to keep me somewhat un-foggy.

I felt somewhat foggy this week diving back into a small technical/web development thing. I had to add a plug-in to a website for work, which should have been a simple task. It’s been a while since I have had to customize anything, or install anything, on a website. This was my bread and butter work for 14 years, but I have been out of it mostly for the last seven. Wow, was I rusty at this. I built content management systems, a search engine, custom websites for radio stations and news organizations – why was this difficult? Some of it is being out of practice, the rest that I didn’t keep up with technology. How things have progressed. While not left behind in a permanent manner, I certainly felt like I was catching up. The feature finally was put up this morning, after I asked for help from the plug-in’s developer. He had the answer in five minutes. I think my VCR needs programming.

Three things…

Something to read – Ontario Premier Doug Ford has given his grand mea culpa for removing land from Toronto’s Greenbelt and the scandal that has since ensued. Two cabinet ministers have resigned, and two separate investigations by people in the government you don’t want poking around if there is the stench of corruption or wrong-doing hanging about. What a mess. This is a textbook case of how not to manage a scandal in government. Who says Ontario politics is boring? https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ford-stag-and-doe-integrity-commissioner-1.6974058

Something to listen to – Pork and Beans by Weezer. I am a fan of Weezer. A big part of this is they are always trying to be a little different. Some groups create their sound, and then just churn out the same dirge album after album. That’s okay, but if you like to be creative, then be creative. Try new things. Weezer does. Sometimes it’s creative videos, sometimes it’s covering a song from the 1980s, sometimes it’s musically going outside of the box.

Something to watch – Rick Green is known for his comedic work in many circles. If you’ve watched the Red Green Show, you’ll know him as Bill from the Adventures with Bill segments. Rick also has done extensive work in the field of ADD/ADHD. And if you are like me, into model trains, you’ll know him from his work in that too. Here’s an interesting video about using a hobby to manage stress.

The last word… It’s September 22 and its 22C outside. It’s sunny. And I even want to be outside. Go outside.