There is so much we don’t know. And the longer we live, the more we know that we can’t know it all.

To me, fog is a metaphor for everything we cannot know in life. For what is obscured from us, and what we only discover over time. We can guess. We can surmise, based on the information available to us. But we cannot know because it is not visible to us—at least not visible yet. Fog moves and changes as life does, and eventually, more is revealed.

The day I made this image, I’d driven the hairpin turns of Route 1 north of Jenner to spend the afternoon exploring Stillwater Cove. Entranced as I was by my first time in this place, I knew the drive home could be treacherous. I headed south in time be in familiar territory before dark. By the time I arrived in Jenner at dusk, the fog had settled in across the estuary. I pulled over to make an image of this tree and its reflection—but even more, an image of what I couldn’t know.