Crisp winter air in the mountains of Norway near Geiranger brings clarity to both lungs and thought. Like a breeze that rolls the fog off a mountain as if they were an avalanche thumbing its nose at gravity.
The movement of the clouds, the revelation of the mountain that had been hidden beneath them, a reminder of the ever-changing and ephemeral nature of phenomena and our often obscured perceptions. That what we think we see or sense may not be what is. Thirty minutes before this photo, a small hill dotted with pines pierced through the fog. An hour before, as I was still hiking in search of a pleasant view and a suitable spot to plant my tripod, there was no mountain, just a dense sea of clouds.
From across the valley on a neighboring ridge I could watch the fog shift from one shape to the next, its form both dependent on the hidden landscape underneath and deceptive of its true nature. Teasing of a peak that may live below, but smoothing over every rock, every shelf, every cliff. One minute to the next the scene before me changed, a few frames from a continuous dance of nature that has been in motion for billions of years and will continue for billions more.
And then the fog was gone, moved to shroud a different peak on its crawl along the land until at some point the day’s sun evaporated it completely. To come back as rain or snow somewhere else sometime else.