A dominant feature of the view from the beach in Madison, Connecticut is the not so distant Tuxis Island. And, as do all islands, there is a certain mystery and magnetic draw to it. According to Algonquin Native American legend, a great giant scooped up a handful of rocks and dirt and threw it into the sound, creating Tuxis Island. So it has a story similar to the Roxbury Puddingstone of Massachusetts, and again it speaks to a distant mythic time when imagined giants ruled the Earth. Historic records indicate that the island has had several owners from as early as 1674. In 1900 the New Haven YMCA ran a camp on the island, and it is now owned by the Madison Beach Club.

During my recent visit, I too was “magnetically drawn” and the general mist above Long Island sound conjured up an impressionist sense of essence over precise sharpness. The result is Photopictorialism Study #13, shown here as Figure 1. My goal was to give the impression of something seen through the “Mists of Avalon,” and I wanted to create the impression of a mariner seeing the island for the first time, after a long see journey, through a handheld telescope.  As a result I added noise to the image to create mist and vignetted the centered island in the picture both by dodging the center and burning in the edges.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 154 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/4000th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.