Hush

Creating images, as opposed to just shooting photographs, is about expressing feelings. The feelings you experienced when you were there shooting the picture and/or what that picture makes you feel when you look at it. Sometimes that can happen when shooting a quick snapshot, but usually sharing the feeling requires some editing, minimal or extensive, to create an image that will hopefully make the viewer feel the feelings. Those may be the same feelings you experienced, or the viewer's personal feelings that are shaped by their life experiences and could be very different from yours, but still they have been prompted, and even shaped, by your image.

The first time I truly understood this experience occurred in 2018 on a cruise in Alaska. I was traveling with my brother and sister-in-law and just shooting tourist shots even though I was in awe of the natural and man-made beauty surrounding me. It was a large ship and hard to get truly composed shots without other tourists in them, or without lagging behind during excursions, and annoying my family.

One morning I was up early and went out on deck to discover that the ship was engulfed in fog so dense and complete that it felt like we were in the middle of a cloud.

It was mesmerizing. We had seen mist and clouds around the mountains and glaciers other days, but not like this. There were other people on deck, but not the usual crowds of people. It was easy to maneuver to avoid them and I quickly forgot that anyone else was there. I was moving around the various decks trying to capture the incredible fantasy world in which I felt immersed from as many vantage points as possible.

These three images evoke my feelings of of a world that had disappeared and was reappearing in disguise. The next image is one that I created out of a few other photographs, combining and editing to conjure the deeply mysterious atmosphere of this unknown place.

I had been surprised to learn how much of Alaska is still truly wilderness, with civilization encompassing well less than 1% of the land, with very few roads, and largely undisturbed by humans. This became even more eerily apparent when drenched in fog, as in this image.

And in this image that I again combined and edited to reveal more of what I was feeling.

The dense wooded areas were lovely.

But again, with combining and editing, I was able to conjure a more sinister version of how I imagined those woods would feel at night, and what nocturnal wildlife could be felt or revealed.

The world where I was located had been hushed. The volume turned way down, not just the audio but the visual too, as if we were covered in a thick, soft blanket that muffled the rest of the world. As the fog began to lift, the disguise dissipated. And we returned to the everyday beauty of Alaska.