Mountain Fog - Landscape Photography

The Swiss Alps from Rigi Kaltbad, Nikon D4

On the left one of my own images shot at Rigi Kaltbad in Central Switzerland on an October evening moments after sunset.

The fog filling up the valley and covering the lake Lucerne like a fluid, the nice textured mountains with first snow in the background, and the red glowing sky.

Sunset behind Mt. Pilatus from Rigi Kulm,
Hasselblad 500c/m, Fujichrome Velvia 100

The beauty of the landscape just shot at the right moment.

More pictures from the same location at link.


On the right a picture shot on film showing the Mount Pilatus at the horizon the last second before sunset. In the foreground the western side of Mount Rigi and in between sculptures of fog like the sea in a heavy storm.

In these two images the fog gives an interesting structure towards the topological bottom of the captured landscape and guides the interest to whatever remains on top of the fogs' surface.

The experienced weather conditions with lower altitude landscape covered in fog and sunny bright weather at upper altitude levels is very typical for the autumn and winter months in Central Switzerland.

More images from the same trip using my analog film setup at link.
And some digital captures at link.

Another simple search for images tagged with "Mountain Fog" in the landscape photography category of 500px.com yields some very interesting photos of mountain landscape under foggy weather conditions.

Before Sunrise by Martin Vaculìk (500px)

Some of them are very similar than the ones presented above with glowing sky, the contrast of the mountains with the sea of fog.

Cloudy Day in Guilin, Gunxi, China
by Mihail Dinichenko (500px)

And other images show more mountain landscape where the foggy weather condition adds a mystical element to the image.

The Art of Light by Matteo Zanvettor (500px)

The fog gives rise to a visual effect that lets these pictures almost look like in watercolour paintings applying soft tonalities of pastel color and some black to add the necessary contrast of the mountain landscape as silhouettes.