Daniel Zeller Photography

San Diego isn’t exactly known for its fog. Sure, we have “May Gray” and “June Gloom” where the marine layer rolls in and covers the blue sky along the coast, but we rarely get a dense fog. When that happens, it’s time to break out the camera.

Today’s weather was weird for mid-December. We had record-breaking temperatures during the day, and then a cool off-shore wind brought in dense fog right around time for the evening rush hour.

My initial thought was to head to Harbor Island and get a moody shot of the skyline softened by the fog. When I arrived, the fog was so dense that I couldn’t see the skyline at all, nor could I see anything across the harbor on Coronado.

Then I thought I’d try capturing the lights on the curved span of the Coronado Bridge from Tidelands Park. Another bust. The fog was so thick and the lights so high above the water that they weren’t visible.

Finally, I decided to head to the Imperial Beach pier that juts out into the Pacific Ocean. A modicum of success! I could see down the pier for a bit, and people were walking into and out of the fog along the way.

I set up slightly off-center from the pier, and then looking directly down the center.

I don’t do a ton of black-and-white processing, but these images captured the mood of the evening.