The houses huddle together, hunched down in the mystery
Their view of the sky has disappeared
Where yesterday the island shone forth in confidence, today it shrinks into itself,
muttering words of self-doubt
But now the sun burns through the morning's hesitation
as gradually, the pool recalls its purpose.
****
P.S. February 17
Look what I got while I was lost in the fog. A Post of the Week Award for Photography from Hilary of Smitten Image fame. Thanks, Hilary!
Wow.. I'm blown away.. and your words describe it so beautifully... it looks like magic to me.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully described. Were you channelling T.S. Eliot?
ReplyDeleteWonderful! But too short! I was wanting the morning fog story to continue, revealing more of what it is hiding. Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteWow-ee, I love fog!!! When I got down to your third photo, I started squinted through the fog--what are those, letters? I said to myself--and then the word gradually developed. Very cool, indeed.
ReplyDeleteWOW indeed! #4 especially has that faraway look, like someplace in Ireland maybe? - not that I've been there - but has that mysterious, haunted, Celtic look, or is that reading too much into it :)
ReplyDeleteStunning to say the least...
Gorgeous! All are superb, but the second one down and the vertical one of the island are my ultimate favorites. The compositions and subtle coloring are so elegant. The soft tones of the "empty" spaces speak volumes about yes, mystery. I love this series...
ReplyDeletevery mysterious indeed - and my guess would be that you would prefer the skull chandelier??
ReplyDeleteWonderful foggy images.. Beautiful captures!
ReplyDeleteclouds on foot. picture three and four are amazing ! can't remember when last i smelled fog. thank you for this nice journey. please have you all a good tuesday.
ReplyDeleteThree more days to fog sharing. save some for us.
ReplyDeleteoh Lynne, i can't tell you how much i love these - they are so pure and delicate, so refined, they make me think of japanese paintings, especially the third vertical one, my favourite - where the world seems to be on the verge of being, not yet, fully there, but not entirely emptiness either. the most poetic of moments, perhaps... yes, that thin line where the consciousness is only a flicker, and starts doubting of its very existence...
ReplyDeletethank you for this quiet, uplifting moment...
ps. i am puzzled, why did you write fog in the vertical picture?
What beautiful photographs .....really lovely.
ReplyDeleteThat sun burning throug the morning's hesitation is stunning.. in image and words. Beautifully done.
ReplyDeleteGwen,
ReplyDeleteIt is rather a magic moment when I open the curtains in the morning and that's the scene revealed.
DCW,
Pretty much channelling myself, when I get out of my own way. Thanks for the comparison!
Audrey,
Oh, you're too kind. I had a few more pix but my motto is, if you can't leave 'em laughing, leave 'em wanting more.
jann,
Isn't it surprising what can be revealed by fog...or by squinting one's eyes.
Mystic Meandering,
Oh you can read whatever you like into any of my images and make up your own stories to enhance your enjoyment of them. Isn't that pretty much what we do in life, anyway? But my bedroom window is pretty far from Ireland!
Stickup,
Ah, the empty spaces, yes, so much empty space in the fog. And the colours of the world soften and mute themselves without any help from the picture maker (for once).
Catherine,
Obviously I am no mystery to you!
Laura,
Thank you so much! A case of right place at the right time.
Robert,
"Clouds on foot"--how poetic! Reminds me of the Carl Sandburg poem,
"The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on."
DCW,
I fear those fog droplets may have coalesced into something a little more defined and wet...such as raindrops, by the time you and Driftwood float in to view.
Roxana,
Ah, the true poet arrives, trailing her clouds of tea smoke and koans. Why indeed did I write "fog" into the pure emptiness of a sky coming into being? To remind itself of itself, perhaps. Truthfully, I almost didn't put that picture into the mix. I thought it was perhaps too forced or too enigmatic and so I tried to fill that silent sky with meaning. Instead of letting it remain perfect in its own moment. I have taken to occasionally experimenting with putting a word or words into a picture to make it more of a graphic expression than a photographic one. But you're right...the picture is self-explanatory and does not need highlighting with a pen. But maybe, too, I put it there to see if anyone was really paying attention.
i love fog - as long as i am not in a car...
ReplyDeleteyour photos really bring out the mystery... love this mood!
Beautiful photos.
ReplyDeleteFog is mysterious, and you've captured it very well.
Thanks for dropping by my place.
The photos, the text, and the font all work together like a published book. The shot of the sun is spectacular... a wonderful series!
ReplyDeleteBises,
Genie
johanna,
ReplyDeleteGlad that you find I managed to capture fog's mystery. Hmmm...makes me think I should try to make a "fog texture" to use on photographs.
Linda/patchwork
And thank you for your visit, in turn, and your kind comment. Funny to think of "capturing" fog.
Genie,
Thanks! I love your impression of this little series as a published book. I'm so glad you enjoyed it.
I really connect with the first one, the atmosphere and light reminded me of Kotaro Migishi's houses (http://www.beckettfineart.com/dynamic/category_artist.asp?ArtistID=4&CategoryID=Paintings).
ReplyDeleteThe letters seem to pin the imagine, as if to interrupt the floating of the tree island through a world of fog - to capture it, as photography also does. A meta photo :)
p.s. the second comment is about the vertical photo - i'm yet to find the letters hidden in the first...
ReplyDeletefentic, says the word.
After getting lost in a massive fog bank, it took me days to find my way back out and back to civilisation, and keyboards, computer screens, cables connecting us across vast distances, through the thickest of mists... only to get to you and find you thus enshrouded in your own enigmatic visions of vapors...
ReplyDeleteIn my wanderings in the hopeless, lightless, pathless fogscapes, I came across this...
In the Fog, by Giovanni Pascoli
I stared into the valley: it was gone—
wholly submerged! A vast flat sea remained,
gray, with no waves, no beaches; all was one.
And here and there I noticed, when I strained,
the alien clamoring of small, wild voices:
birds that had lost their way in that vain land.
And high above, the skeletons of beeches,
as if suspended, and the reveries
of ruins and of the hermit’s hidden reaches.
And a dog yelped and yelped, as if in fear,
I knew not where nor why. Perhaps he heard
strange footsteps, neither far away nor near—
echoing footsteps, neither slow nor quick,
alternating, eternal. Down I stared,
but I saw nothing, no one, looking back.
The reveries of ruins asked: “Will no
one come?” The skeletons of trees inquired:
“And who are you, forever on the go?”
I may have seen a shadow then, an errant
shadow, bearing a bundle on its head.
I saw—and no more saw, in the same instant.
All I could hear were the uneasy screeches
of the lost birds, the yelping of the stray,
and, on that sea that lacked both waves and beaches,
the footsteps, neither near nor far away.
Great pictures, and a nice sequence also. I like how you are imposing some structure onto the formlessness of fog!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photos, fog can add so much to the mystery of a photo. Congrats on your POTW!
ReplyDeleteThese foggy photos are delicious!
ReplyDeleteI have a foggy brain lately too...can you tell?
ReplyDeleteLove these pix, a reminder that even tho' we are all summery and warm it won't be too long before we are fogged up again too.
Helloooooo!!!
ReplyDeleteSeems I got lost in the fog for days on end, gradually turning into weeks without my noticing. But at last I have found my way back to the blog and discovered so many more lovely comments left here...as well as a Post of the Week nod from Hilary.
Sally Tharpe Rowles,
Thank you for your kind comment. I'm sorry I missed it in the first round of replies I gave but it snuck in while I was writing them.
Hilary,
Thank you so much for acknowledging my humble pictorial efforts with a POTW for Photography! I am honoured.
manuela,
Thanks for supplying the link to Kataro Migishi's paintings, work that I was unfamiliar with. Wonderful simplicity. I especially like the painting of the houses huddled together in the middle of the village. And I love your assessment of my photo with the lettering as a "meta photo".
Brilliant! (I only wish that I was really clever enough to have intended that). But you'll be looking a long time for the letters hidden anywhere but in the vertical photo as there aren't any.
Owen,
I arrived in time only to hear the echoing words of the poem and the sound of your retreating footsteps as you disappeared once again into the enshrouding fog. I called out, but there was no answer...just a distant croaking of frogs and the damp sound of leaping toads.
Jenny Woolf,
Imposing form onto fog sounds like a good motif for a series of paintings...or an exercise in futility, which often amounts to the same thing.
Steve Gravano,
Thanks for stopping by to peer through the fog here and locate the place to leave a kind comment. And also for the heads up about the POTW. I've been away from blogging for awhile, so missed seeing it.
Lady Fi,
Delicious, and extremely lo-cal!
Saj,
Lovely to see you looming out of the fog like this. Glad to hear things are still all summery where you are. We had a wee taste of springlike weather here but now the rains are back. Guess it's still winter here, after all, wet coast style, that is.
Congrats to you, louciao!!!
ReplyDeletejann,
ReplyDeleteI am not worthy...but I'll gladly accept the accolade.
;-)
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ReplyDelete