Foggy day at Stangala
- 📍 Location: Stangala Valley, Odet River, near Quimper, Brittany, France
- 📅 Date: August 2024
The Stangala valley, cut by the Odet river just outside Quimper, is thick with legend, and on a foggy morning it’s easy to see why. Ancient oaks and beeches rise straight out of a floor of moss and fern, their upper branches vanishing into drifting cloud, while the river itself moves quietly below, barely visible through the haze.
I spent the whole morning simply watching the fog thin and thicken again, waiting for the one moment when the light would carry just far enough into the trees to give the scene some depth without flattening it completely.
Mist had come up the gorge and was sitting between the trees, thick enough that the far bank was only a suggestion. I framed upright through a stand of ferns so the near fronds stay sharp and everything beyond them softens rank by rank into grey.
Fog is the most reliable depth cue there is and it costs nothing. All I had to do was find a foreground worth keeping and then let the valley disappear behind it at its own pace.
Awards & Recognition
- Chromatic Awards, 2024: Honorable Mention, Nature
- Neutral Density Photography Awards, 2024: Honorable Mention, Nature/Landscapes
Limited-edition fine-art print from the Skywaven Studios collection, available in several sizes, papers and framing options.
