My blogging buddy Linda over at Shoreacres commented, just the other day, on my current header photo. It’s a favorite of mine, and one that I made at one of my very favorite places. This particular day in late September six years ago started out with heavy fog, and I decided to take advantage of it with a walk around one of the lakes on the grounds of the Concordia Language Villages, several miles north of Bemidji, Minnesota. 
The colors were close to peak and, as I started my hike around the little lake, the fog slowly lifted and gave me a complete softbox sky that lit everything evenly without any harsh direct sunlight or sudden deep shadows. One can hike around the lake in a half-hour or so, but I stretched it out to several hours, savoring the gentle beauty of this oh-so-lovely spot.
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krikitarts 
The photo is pure magic!
Why, thank you, Cindy, how kind of you!
Very beautiful. Well worth spending the time hiking around.
Wish I could show this to you in person. You’d love it!
I wish the fog would lift here. I had just a bit of a view my first night in the mountains, but then the rain/drizzle/fog/mist/clouds set in, and it’s left me frustrated because I just don’t know how to deal with it. Ah, well. I’ll enjoy your photo in this incarnation, and dream of what the mountain color would look like if ever the sun would shine. I’m doing very well at producing photos with blown-out skies and dull trees, but they aren’t the sort of things I’d want to share — even though they do give a sense of the general gloominess here. :-)
Sorry to hear about the continuing gloom where you are.
To deal with white skies and dull trees, you might try the technique referred to as HDR (high dynamic range), which involves putting your camera on a tripod and taking several pictures in quick succession at different exposures: typically one overexposed, another at the exposure the camera thinks is right, and still another underexposed. Software then merges the best parts of the three images. You can find lots of online information about this. Here’s some from a guy in Austin:
http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-photography/
I don’t have a tripod, but my camera does have an HDR setting which I’ve never explored I’ll give that a whirl, and check out the website — thanks. On the other hand, there’s no fog this morning, the clouds seem to be breaking, and I can hear birds — all good signs.
Rain and drizzle can really, um, put a damper on things, all right, especially of there’s a lot of wind as well. I do love shooting in the fog, though it usually involves adjusting the interest to much closer distances and foregoing long-distance landscapes and the like. Steve’s suggestion for trying some HDR work is a very good one. You don’t always need a tripod, if you have a very steady hand, but it does help to get the details crisp, since you’re merging the info from two or more separate images. Two good programs are the one by Nik software (free) and Photomatix. The Nik program also lets you do tone-mappng of a single image, which produces an effect very similar to one using full HDR. I processed the image in this post (and the one in the header) with Photomatix.
So the tree in the header version is layered in from another photograph?
No, I wouldn’t do that. It’s a completely different image, made from a different (but nearby) spot on the shore (and 18 minutes earlier) whose view included the trees in the left foreground.
Both compositions have their charm.
Excellent photo! I’d linger there too.
I try to schedule a hike around this lake at least once each year, but this year I didn’t make it. It feels like something is really incomplete!
Gorgeous image! I can see why you enjoy visiting this beautiful spot. :-)
Both daughters were first students, then counselor/teachers at the language village in their youth. What an experience, and what a setting for it!
You’re header photo has had a positive effect on my consciousness too. It’s absolutely lovely. In soft focus it could look like an expressionist painting!
Or even an impressionist painting, perhaps. I stretch to say this because I wanted to send you a link that I think you’ll really enjoy. It’s a Minnesota musician, Pop Wagner, performing his totally unforgettable “Impressionist Two-Step.” Hope you like it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q-RVnpqOUg
Indeed, that’s what I meant to say.
Thanks for the link Gary, I’ll have a listen.