Sometimes, I get something stuck in my head and it drives me. I get obsessed. I can’t let it go until it's done with me.

I recently decided to take a weekend and tour the Sonoma Coast by myself to take photographs. I had an image in my head that was driving me. I'm a huge fan of Michael Kenna's work. He does amazing black and white photography in a unique style – low light with very long exposure times. The results are stark and ghostly pictures that evoke a sense of mystery, awe, even peacefulness. Or at least they do from me.

I had one Michael Kenna photo stuck in my head. It kept coming into my mind's eye in the middle of the day for days on end. I just could not shake the picture of a lone tree in the fog. It looks a little like this photo, but this is not the one.

I decided that I would spend a weekend looking for my tree in the fog. Surely I would find it somewhere along the Sonoma coast. I drove to Bodega Bay and planned to get up early the next morning and find my perfect backlit Michael Kenna tree when it would be foggy and the light would be soft. I got up at 6:00 the next morning and conditions were perfect with everything cloaked in fog. I had a quick breakfast and walked out of the cafe ready for action. The fog had completely cleared. Dammit. I made my way up the coast, then back down the coast, and all around Bodega Bay. I took a couple of quick photos but I could not find my tree. I finally gave up and went into town.

There was a store that looked like a Chinese import truck had exploded and scattered whirligigs and psychedelic banners and garden gnomes all along the road for a city block. There was a decaying wharf building jutting out into the water with peeling white paint and a sagging jet black roof, but no tree.

I made my way down to Point Reyes Station and stumbled upon the weekly farmers market in the old feed store. I had a nice lunch from the venders and listened to three locals playing folk music from the 60’s. They were so bad they were good.

I fell in love with a grandfather and granddaughter playing in the nook of a book store. The little girl had on a witch’s hat and her face was painted bright green and the grandfather was listening with intense fascination to her summaries of the books she already knew.

I talked to the beautiful and elegant jelly lady who told me that she loved making jams and jellies so much that she had to start selling them because her kitchen and house began to overflow with jars of preserved delicacies. She helped me straighten the rows of jars then stepped out from behind the table so that I could take a picture. I bought four jars. I don’t eat jams. I needed to get back to my search for my tree.

I headed towards the Point Reyes light house but took a detour down a gravel road that seemed to go towards the water. I ended up in a neighborhood of beautiful little beach bungalows that spilled down a hill to an inlet surrounded by rolling sand dunes. No backlit tree at the water’s edge however. I finally made it to the Point Reyes lighthouse, which was socked in under dense fog so that I couldn’t even get a photo of it. This day was a total waste.

I was getting pissed at this point. Where the hell was my Michael Kenna tree? I might have a chance of catching it at sunset, but it clearly wasn’t around here. I headed inland. I watched trees all the way, but I didn’t find my perfect standing-alone tree. By the time I got to Healdsburg, it was dark. I would get up early the next morning and continue the search.

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I should say at this point that I have no real training in photography. And I’ve probably created the most difficult self-directed learning program in the history of photography. I find photographers that I like, and I buy their books, or I download their pictures, then I spend hours studying their photos. I don’t spend hours looking through and reading the entire book. I spend hours focusing on a single photograph, or maybe two.

​ Michael Kenna is a great example. I spent hours studying this photo. How did he capture the light like that? What F-stop did he use? How long was the exposure? What time of day was it? Did he stumble on this view or had he been researching locations for days? Weeks?

This is a shot by Joey L. from his “Holy Men of Varanasi” photo series that I’ve gone back to again and again studying multiple photos. How did he get a Sadhu to pose for him? He violates all the “rules” of composition here. What makes this photo so magical? The light? The subject? What time of day was this photo taken? How far away was he from the subject? Is this all natural lighting?

​This is a photo from the great Steve McCurry. I’ve spent dozens of hours analyzing McCurry’s photos. Are his photos posed? Captured? How does he get these amazing colors and depth in his photos? How much adjustment does he do in post? Where was the light source? How many shots did it take to get this one?

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I’ve taken many classes over the years and I’ve watched dozens of YouTube videos on creating great photographs, but that feels technical and boring. I love finding a picture that gets an “Oh my god" out of me, then trying to understand what makes it so powerful. I’m sure it’s the harder way to learn, but it’s the way that excites me. It's that emotional connection to an image that draws me in, that makes me want to learn to create that for my viewer. It makes me want to get good at this.

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The next morning, I woke up disgusted with the lack of acceptable Michael Kenna trees in Sonoma County. The best dramatic trees in fog by the water are obviously down in Carmel. I should have known that.

Owning land in Sonoma has been a dream of mine for years and I was in the area, so fuck Michael Kenna, and his trees. I'm moving on.

I wandered into the local real estate office and met Nancy, and she found a couple of listings for me to drive by. I got the addresses and took off. Of course, I would keep my eyes open for backlit foggy trees along the way.

As I was driving out of town, a page I had just read the day before in Jay Maisel’s book “It’s Not About the F-Stop” came to mind. This is a great book where Jay shows one of his photographs and tells the story about how he captured it. Jay spent an entire day at Coney Island taking pictures of the Mermaid Parade, but he was not getting what he wanted and was completely disappointed. At the end of the day, he stood up to leave and looked behind him. He had been sitting on the edge of an old shooting gallery – a rusted, falling down, and well-used relic in garish carnival colors. There was his photo. Of course, his message was to stop searching so hard for the picture you want or you’ll miss all the beautiful moments that present themselves along the way.

I was driving over the mountains between Sonoma and Napa counties to see a property, turning off one narrow winding road onto another, and there in front of me was a cedar plank fence, probably 200 feet long and decades old. The fence started in the bright afternoon sun and then disappeared into shade under three giant oak trees. The fence and the trees were beautiful on their own, but the fence was covered in a stunning tapestry of lichen. The lichen was a light silver where the sun and lack of water had it struggling for life, and it turned a dark rich green under the deep shade of the oak canopy. I felt a sudden chill and pulled my truck off into the ditch.

I spent the better part of the day taking dozens of pictures of the fence, the lichen formations, the changing colors along the run of the pickets, the powerful limbs of the oaks and the mass of green forest just beyond the weather-beaten fence. I honestly don’t know how long I was there. I finally noticed the shadows getting long. I was nearly late for dinner with friends. I packed up my camera and headed down the hill. I never saw the property. I don't care.

​When I got home and sorted through my pictures I realized what a good photo trip it had been. There was no Michael Kenna tree, but there were some nice shots, and I did capture this beautiful, stunning row of endless pickets and lichen formations under a triad of massive oak trees. I spent a few hours in joy and flow and awe.

Of course, the lesson here is about more than photography, and it’s a lesson I apparently needed to learn again. It seems like the best lessons need to be learned again and again. I’m still looking for that lone tree, backlit, in the fog. I hope it drives me for a while. And I promise myself that I'll turn off on some gravel roads, buy some jam, forget the time and try not to miss the beautiful surprises along the way.

​Thank you Michael Kenna. Thank you Jay Maisel. Thank you realtor Nancy.

“That was it! I had been obsessed with the people and had been sitting with my back to the shot. Once you see something like this, your major obligation is simply to record its impact on you and communicate your love for it to others. Above all, don’t try to be clever. It’s good enough that you found it. Just don’t f*%k it up.”

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~ Jay Maisel, “It’s Not About the F-Stop”