Hiding Among Tall Grasses Gray's Lilies are globally rare wildflowers growing within critically imperiled habitat. I travel to the grassy balds of the Roan Highlands to visit the largest known population of these wonderful Southern Appalachian wildflowers. Late...
Trip Journal: June 12-15, 2022The Blue Ridge Parkway is America's longest linear park travelling 469 miles along the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina. Overlook...
Trip Journal: June 9-11, 2022 The Blue Ridge Parkway is America's longest linear park travelling 469 miles along the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina. Overlook...
As February draws to a close, it's time again for me to turn my attention away from the coast and into the forest. Life is certainly on the cusp of popping out of the thick leaf litter once again. And decay. Mushrooms and fungi. Like the False Turkey Tail Mushrooms...
"And then, some morning in the second week, the mind wakes, comes to life again. Not in a city sense--no--but beach-wise. It begins to drift, to play, to turn over in gentle careless rolls like those lazy waves on the beach. One never knows what chance treasures...
When I was a boy--aside from the obvious ball sports like basketball and football--I spent my time with a bunch of matchbox cars that I liked to line up and organize every day. I'm not sure what I got out of that. I also had a bunch of marbles and crayons. I've...
As a kid, my family always went to the Outer Banks in the heat of summer. I came to love the Outer Banks during summer. First, it was simply spending all day long in the waves. Not coming out until my eyes were bloodshot and my skin sunburned. Then, it was...
The Scotch Bonnet is considered, by many, to be the holy grail of beachcombing finds in North Carolina. This little three-inch long, plaid checkered sea snail shell is quite a difficult find. Oddly enough, the Scotch Bonnet was deemed the official state shell of...
Did you know that sea pottery, or sea china, was a thing? I didn't! Sea pottery is shards of broken earthenware that has undergone the same process as sea glass: broken, tumbled, smoothed and spit back into the shell hash with the tides. When I first started...
New home for sale: priced to move. Bargain. May have dings, dents, and considerable blemish to the finish. Spacious interior. Unconditioned space. Single occupancy preferred. Best offers only. Shark-Eye Moon Snail Shell found along Cape Hatteras National...
Happy #stackersaturday! It always gives me a kick thinking about what is considered acceptable, honorable uses of ones time, energy and effort. And, on the flip side, what is considered wasteful, unproductive, and ultimately unacceptable. I've spent twelve hour days...
This was one of those poor-planning-lazy-wakeup-didn't-quite-get-to-my-location-on-time type of photographs! By the time we cruised around the circle in front of the historic Bodie Island Lighthouse, the sky was already doing its thing. I just pulled the car onto...
Pure seascapes are something I love to shoot. Nothing but the ocean and the sky. The interface between land and water; marine and terrestrial. Moving water is mesmerizing to me and so fun to shoot behind the lens. Add some good light and all the ingredients are...
Happy Valentine's Day, folks! When I lived in Upstate South Carolina I drove NC-107 frequently to access the Chattooga River and to get up to the Blue Ridge Escarpment. Silver Run Falls, a small waterfall near Cashiers, North Carolina, was just off the roadside. The...
After several successful winters, I was baited into extending my typical one-month stay into a two-month adventure including February. It didn't go well. January was a bust. Weather was cold and wet. My productivity was minimal. February was much the same. There...
I saw a photograph by Susannah (@lulannah) on Instagram of lichen on an American Holly tree within Nags Head Woods Preserve. The lichen was bright red and spread in patches of varying intensity over the light gray bark of the tree. It was amazing! I was instantly...
Day two of showing Kristi Parsons around the Outer Banks began with lots of potential. The calm conditions from the night before held on over night; the forecast called for reflective sunrise conditions. Skies were crowded with clouds. Everything was lining up...
In 2019 I teamed up with Kristi Parsons to put together a 2020 Spirit of the Southern Appalachian Mountains calendar. Kristi's efforts to sell the calendar were so successful that we decided to use the profits to spend a week in the Outer Banks, a place Kristi had...
In 2013 I lived in an apartment in Upstate South Carolina. Whenever the forecast showed snow for the mountains of Western North Carolina, Whiteside Mountain is where I would rush off to. It was a straight shot up the sinuous NC-107. Whiteside Mountain is the...
The Outer Banks are part of a lichen biodiversity hotspot. I had no idea! I'm familiar with lichens from my work in the Southern Appalachians, often considered the crown jewel of lichen biodiversity in this country. But, the Outer Banks? It turns out that the...
Walking the beach is like treasure hunting, at least for me. Every single night the entire physical landscape is washed and stripped. Changed. New tides bring forth new treasures. The ocean redistributes this wealth in accordance with weather, winds, tides etc....
February 2021 was exceptionally wet in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It rained. And it rained again. All that water needs to go somewhere and there's nowhere really for it to go on a sandbar with a high water table. No sewers and streams and rivers to carry...
I want to be better at photographing intimate scenes. Like many, I chased grand landscapes when I began my career as a full time photographer. The grand landscape was the quickest and straightest route. In many respects, the grand landscape was a trail I felt I had...
It's said that purple holds both the energy and intensity of red, as well as the calm and authority of blue. In fact, purple has the shortest wavelength of all colors making it more powerful and intense than any other color, even red. In the natural world purple is...
"This whole house, wildly out of place as it appears to the uninitiated, is a monument to things wild, bold, and beautiful." --Bryan Mims in Our State Magazine The Whalehead Club is a 21,000 square foot hunt club and home located in Corolla, North Carolina. Built in...
You've probably heard this warning many times: don't leave a scene until the last light extinguishes! I was shooting the Oregon Inlet and newly constructed Marc Basnight Bridge in early January 2021. Winter's long night was fast approaching. The sky was gray and...
There are four types of Whelk shell that I run into when beachcombing Cape Hatteras National Seashore: the knobbed whelk, the pear whelk, the channel whelk, and the lightning whelk. This is a Lightning Whelk shell. Similar to knobbed whelks in appearance, it's only...