Penumbra

Penumbra for the person who needs permission to leave something unfinished until they're actually ready for it.
 
I made this several years before Soleil existed as an idea, on an early sunrise shoot, at a lookout I'd driven past countless times but never actually visited. It was cold, foggy, and uncertain, the kind of morning that could just as easily produce flat, lifeless light as anything worth photographing. As first light approached, the sun began reflecting off distant cloud still trapped in the valley below me, while I stood above the fog line in clear air, and a warm orange glow met the blue of the sky overhead, casting the whole scene in a strange, beautiful violet. The fog itself made the image, pulling every ridgeline, tree line and pocket of forest forward in soft, distinct layers, adding real depth and a sense of mystery about what lay hidden beneath it.
 
What I didn't expect was how long the photograph would need before I could actually see it properly. The files sat unedited on a hard drive for close to a year, because my own editing style hadn't yet caught up to what I'd captured, and every early attempt left me unsatisfied.
 
Penumbra is for the parts of yourself, or your work, that aren't finished revealing themselves yet. Let it hang somewhere you'll return to often, and it will keep offering the same patience it eventually gave me: some things don't need resolving the moment they're made, they only need you to come back once you're ready to see them properly.