On my morning walks, I usually make a quick stop at our pool and hot tub to check out the water temperatures. The pool is heated and the hot tub is very warm to hot.

Sometimes though, the heaters are down and waiting for parts, so I like to do a little temperature check for myself before committing to a swim.

Yesterday morning, I didn’t have to physically check. The warm water mixed with the cool morning air gave all of the visual evidence I needed. I enjoyed both a hot tub and a swim shortly after my walk.

Photographing steam is tricky sometimes. Because I was en route on my power walk, I didn’t take the time to think it through. If I had switched on the Live Photo feature on my phone, it would have been easy to isolate one frame of the shape-shifting steam. Another thing I could have done was to turn the powerful hot tub jets on for a few minutes, as this shows the steam even more so. Good old hindsight.

As it happened, I got lucky with the shot, as I think I was able to show the heat, which was my goal.

“For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson