slides: James Clayton Sattel’s RI Views: Morning Mist

Saturday, October 20, 2012

James Clayton Sattel, GoLocalProv Contributor

Photographer James Clayton Sattel is passionate about Rhode Island, particularly those shores, crags, and vistas of his home island: Aquidneck.

This week, Jim takes advantage of a photographer's smartest ploy--getting up before the sun--to catch the early-morning views on both Aquidneck and elsewhere. For Jim, one of the greatest benefits of morning along the Bay is the mists that he discovers. He's picked some of his favorite examples for all the late risers out there.

To see more of or purchase Sattel's distinctive views, go here.

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Swan's Way

Getting up early is a gift to any photographer, and another pleasure is keeping company with the area's many birds--also early risers! Here a swan greets the day in the morning mist.

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Swan II

Swans are perfect creatures to photoraph in mist, and in this case, the still morning allowed for the appearance of an equally mysterious, elegant sailboat in the distance.

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Moon

Sometimes the mist isn't on the ground, but hanging as moisture in the air, adding a difusion to all sources of light. When that source is a full moon, you get a particularly beautiful effect.

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Mist + Light

Down below the moon, mist can make landscape lights glow and refract in all kinds of remarkable ways.

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Mist + Light II

The colors of lights are saturated, it seems, by refracting in the water droplets of a misty night.

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Angel Wave

Often, when photographing nature, you're not sure what you have until you look at your images. Here, I snapped the mist and play of the spray in a morning wave, and discovered a divine shape to it all. Hence, "angel wave."

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Ground Mist

The cold air off the Bay also creates fog in low laying areas of land. I love how the mist here takes all the orange colors of the sun and spreads them among the trees.

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Geese

It's remarkable how the mist can create almost an painter's background for a scene. Here, the geese taking flight are clear to the eye, while the background is misted into an impressionist wash of color and shape.

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Painter's View

Again, the mist does the work in the photograph here, creating a Turner-like backdrop of brilliant orange light for the quiet movement of birds in the foreground.

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Disappearing Horizon

Talk about mystery. When the shoreline's mist sets low and thick, you lose a sense of the horizon. You, and the shore, and the camera, are shrouded. Another wonderful thing about this moment was how clear and blue the sky is, above the mist. Just another day on Aquidneck!