This image is one of my favorites. I think it has a Zen quality in that it came to be only when I thought I had stopped shooting for the day. I was driving up the California coast from San Francisco with my good friend, Dave, looking for photo opportunities. It was late in the day and the usual marine fog began to drift in. Since the fog was rapidly obscuring everything near the coast, we turned inland around the spot where the Russian River flows into the Pacific. We only stopped in Jenner, CA because Dave felt the call of nature.

I wandered out onto a dock and noticed that a bend in the shoreline created a “point of land” effect. I saw that the fog was moving inland so rapidly that I only had about ten seconds to capture it in just the right place. Even landscape photographers have to have the ability to see the unplanned. I didn’t spend a week in Jenner exploring and waiting for just the right light. I was lucky enough to be there at the right time and be able to visualize it. This was a very serendipitous picture. If events (the fog, Dave) hadn’t intervened, it never would have happened. Since I consider myself somewhat of a purist,  I usually don’t include very many man-made structures in my landscapes, but I think they inject a note of warmth and humanity into this image.