wanderer

I couldn’t resist getting a snapshot of this rather overdressed (for the beach) man as he clambered on the rocks.    There was something dramatic about the silhouetted figure against the bright seascape, dark overcoat flapping in the wind.  Then I realised why the scene, as unusual as it was, seemed familiar.  Nearly three years ago now I posted an image of an old favourite, The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Casper David Friedrich.  As well as the original, it’s an image that is often referenced or parodied as well.  A google image search for the title brings up plenty of contemporary examples.

These aren’t your average rocks of course.  They are the Moeraki Boulders, on Koekohe Beach near Moeraki on New Zealand’s Otago coast.  One of the famous boulders seemed particularly happy that day.

it comes it goes, but it’s always lurking

The Fog!  Of course the San Francisco region is famously foggy, and West Marin is no exception.  Sometimes it comes sneaking down the long narrow Tomales Bay, following the line of the San Andreas Fault.  Sometimes it comes streaming up over the Inverness Ridge driven by a cool breeze off the ocean.  Sometimes it is clear and sunny with not a cloud in sight, but you know the fog is waiting just off shore, ready to reclaim the airspace once the day cools or the wind changes.  How could I spend time here and not try to capture this ever-present but ever changing element of the landscape.

Fog drawings are chalk on black paper, and on the white paper are charcoal drawings focussing on the forest shadows.  Each sheet is 56×76 cm half sheet of stonehenge.

pic of the day – sea fog

This image was taken recently at Depot Beach on the NSW south coast. I’d spent Christmas camping there amongst the spotted gums. The last morning started warm and sunny – and then suddenly this rolled in. I don’t think I’d ever seen such thick fog when it wasn’t either cold weather or up in the mountains – certainly not my usual mental image of summer at the beach. I overheard someone say it was a sea fog.

A quick bit of searching shows this is indeed the case. Sea Fog is in fact the most common form of Advection Fog, which is caused by walm, moist air being slowly blown accross a cool surface (the sea). While this is not all that common in eastern Australia, in some locations it is – think of all those images you’ve seen of the Golden Gate Bridge surrounded by fog – that’s sea fog.

My search also turned up this well known painting by Casper David Friedrich (1774-1840). I’ve seen images of this painting before – but I hadn’t remembered the title – “Wanderer above the sea of fog”

Of course that’s more likely to be radiation fog than advection fog but I figure that a) you don’t really care about the technicalities of fog and b) It was a good enough excuse to slip Casper in. I figure if you like fog, you may well enjoy the work of CDF too. Here’s one that most likely is sea fog. This is one of my favourites – though there’s no fog.