Long exposure notes — fog banks, layered ridges, and the loss of detail.
Ridge line, 6sTen-stop, middayCloud sitting on water
Detail is not the point
A long exposure through fog throws away most of the information in a scene, and that is the reason to make one. What survives is structure: the ridge, the treeline, the boundary between water and air. When people say a photograph looks like a painting they usually mean this — that somebody chose to keep less.
On filters
A ten-stop filter has a colour cast; every one I have used does. I stopped fighting it and started shooting these as monochrome from the outset, which removes the argument entirely. The only filter setting worth being fussy about is whether the seal actually blocks light leaking in around the mount.