Portofino Fog — © Copy­right 2012 by William Beem

Portofino Fog

We’re get­ting close to a turn­ing point in the weather around here. That means it’s time to start think­ing about my Portofino fog shot again. I never seem to catch it when we’re really socked in with fog so thick that you can’t see those trees at the end of the Portofino Bay hori­zon. It’s rare, but it can hap­pen. I drive the local weather guy crazy ask­ing ques­tions about his fog fore­cast. The sad truth is that fog is such a fickle thing. It comes and goes within moments around here.

I live about 45 min­utes away from this scene. It’s not like I can wake up, see fog out my win­dow and expect the con­di­tions will be the same over there. Even if I call and ask the hotel folks if there’s fog, it could change right after they hang up. I know, because I’ve made a bunch of trips just try­ing to get the shot that I want of Portofino fog.

Worse, this is one of the tourist hotels that charges for park­ing. It’s bad enough to drive almost an hour and get skunked, but then to have to pay $12 to park while you watch your scene go bad is another wrin­kle that makes me second-​guess whether it’s even worth the effort at all.

Still, it’s good to want. We should all have our Great White Buf­falo. Some­thing we know exists, but can’t eas­ily catch. If we could, it wouldn’t be the Great White Buf­falo. It’d just be another smelly beast, and who wants that?

As sum­mer weather starts to fade, the temps will start drop­ping in the morn­ing. For that brief moment when the tem­per­a­ture and the dew point match, we’ll have some fog. That’s all I usu­ally get, though. I don’t want some fog. I want gobs of fog. Maybe it’s time to rent a fog machine.