P#19 Q1B: Is a Foggy Day Really the Best Time to Shoot Fall Photographs?

The Magic of the Moment

Jim Zuckerman: Taking pictures of fall on a foggy day is fantastic -- it's magical. Low clouds and fog are my favorites. This is true not only with fall colors, but with any landscape photography.

I was in Europe and got up really early in the morning. I was photographing a spectacular chateau in France. It was really foggy and it created a mystical and magical time to photograph outside.

This usually happens in the morning, not so much in the evening, because of the temperature differential. Trust me, when I see fog in the morning I race out of the house or hotel. I can't stop shooting until it's lifted and because it's short-lived, you usually have to work very fast.

Audri Lanford: Wow, that's so counterintuitive. Is there anything we need to know about shooting in fog that would be helpful?

Watch Your Exposure

Jim Zuckerman: Yes, exposure. The way exposure meters work is that they are made to interpret the world as middle gray or middle tone. The issue is not the color. You could have middle red, middle blue, middle green, but what a meter is designed to do is to look at a scene and make that middle tone.

If you're going to photograph fog what will probably happen is that the meter will look at the fog and say, "Oh, middle gray," and then underexposes your pictures, trying to make that white fog gray.

What you want to be careful about is that you don't want your pictures to be underexposed. Nowadays it's very easy to assess your images because you can look at the LCD monitor.

When we shot film you couldn't do that. People would take Polaroids to look at shadows and exposure, but now we don't have to use a Polaroid. In fact, you can't because they're out of business.

The reason they're out of business is because we have the LCD monitor now to immediately assess our work. If you're going to shoot fog, then you can take a shot or two and look at the monitor to see how your exposure is.

If it's a little bit dark, you can easily use your exposure compensation feature and go plus one, plus one third, plus two thirds -- however much you feel that you're underexposed. That will easily solve the problem.

Last year I was coming back from shooting fall colors in New England. I was in Tennessee on the freeway and there was some accident or other problem and we were stopped on Interstate 40. There were fall colors everywhere and we happened to be in fog and the cars weren't moving.

So, right on the freeway, I got out of the car, started shooting all the trees in fog. I'm sure all the other drivers thought I was crazy but I was glad that we were stopped because otherwise you can't legally stop in the freeway. It was just a lucky break for me that I was able to shoot these beautiful images.

In Conclusion

Shooting pictures on a foggy day can make for magical photographs. Just make sure you watch your exposure and use your LCD screen to assess your work. If you notice problems with the pictures being a bit dark, use your exposure compensation. Doing this can solve any underexposure problems a foggy day might present, and will provide you with stunning fall photographs.