Zombies

It was one of those winter mornings where the fog doesn’t just obscure — it swallows. Standing on the shoreline with the Nikon D610 and my trusty Nikkor 105mm f/2.5, I could barely see ten metres ahead. Figures emerged slowly from the haze, walking towards me in silence, their features lost in the grey void. The effect was unsettling enough that, reviewing the shots later, I couldn’t help but think of a scene from a low-budget horror film — the title wrote itself.

Technically, this photograph is a study in embracing limitation. Autofocus in such conditions is almost pointless, and it wasn’t a problem since the lens is full-manual; I pre-focused and let the depth of field fall where it might. Exposure was tricky: the meter wanted to overcompensate for the low contrast, so I underexposed slightly to preserve what little shadow detail the scene offered. Shooting in monochrome made sense — colour would have added nothing here — and the flat light lent itself to a high-key approach, though I stopped short of blowing out the midtones.

Compositionally, the staggered placement of the figures gives the frame a sense of depth despite the lack of sharp background detail. The lead group is positioned just off-centre, allowing the empty expanse of sand on the left to breathe, while the scattered silhouettes behind them suggest an endless procession. There’s an unplanned symmetry in the flanking figures on either side, adding to the eerie balance.

This is not a “sharp” photograph in the conventional sense. The fog robs the lens of contrast and edge definition, but that’s precisely what gives the image its mood. Any attempt to force clarity in post would have killed the atmosphere. Sometimes, the imperfections are the point — and here, they’re the difference between a dull shot of people on a beach and something that hints, however faintly, at the uncanny.