Most of the people in my life worship the sun. During the cold months, they pine for the long, balmy days of spring and summer, for endless blue skies and the bright light. During the warm months, I pine for the short, cold days of autumn and winter, for the darkness and brooding atmosphere.
I also pine for the fog. To wake up to the world blanketed with fog is, for me, one of life’s greatest pleasures. When the trees are barely visible and I’m half guessing in what direction I’m walking in the forest, then I’m at my happiest.
When there’s a fog afoot, I don’t want to stay indoors, I want to be out in it. I want to be absorbing its mystery and atmosphere. When it starts to dissipate, when the sun takes it away – and often so fast – I begin to panic, I want to hold it there, hold it in the forest for all day. I take medication for bipolar and psychosis. I have therapy. But what I feel my mental health needs more than either of these things, is gloomy weather. Gloomy weather for me to wander in and photograph and imagine up stories. After having been out in the fog, I feel significantly more energized, alive and happy than I ever do when I’m out in the sunshine. The sunshine doesn’t give me energy, it leeches it away.
I can remember, even as a child, being so happy when it was foggy, for it made the familiar unfamiliar, and that was thrilling beyond belief. When you walk into the fog, you don’t know what lurks there, you don’t know if you may find yourself in an otherworld, and what can be more exciting than that?
Celebrating the strange and the shadowy, the damned and unseen 