2022: Year in ReviewFirst with the good. It was a tremendously productive year. I processed, catalogued, and keyworded over seven hundred new images. Nearly two per day on average. In the field, I connected more intimately with the landscape. I found new (and...
March is all about the Lowcountry of South Carolina. There's no comparable in my annual photography travels. Color. So much color. The most amazing trees. Draping heavy to the ground--and below--and then back up again. Flowers. Riotous azalea. Spicy vanilla...
"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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Maritime forest is a beautiful anomaly in the Outer Banks. Forests that are impacted by the ocean. Nags Head Woods is one of the largest examples. Owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Nags Head Woods Preserve has over eight miles of hiking trails open...
I was not prepared to photograph wildflowers during the month of January. I simply didn't think anything would be flowering at the Outer Banks in the heart of winter. Much to my surprise, however, whenever a warm day or two was in the forecast, the front yards of...
The only way to naturally expose the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse as the brightest subject in the frame is to shoot the lighthouse during predawn, before the sky and the sun dominate the frame. Any subject photographed looking into the sun will be a silhouette....
When I first floated the idea of an extended winter stay in the Outer Banks, my primary curiosity was whether I'd be able to shoot worthwhile landscapes given the dormant landscape features. It turns out, everything on the ocean side looked similar. The soundside,...
I must admit, I was mildly obsessed with the Portuguese Man O' War when I found my first one on Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The pink and blue translucent colors on the sail, as well as the mesmerizing patterns within the individual tentacles...they grabbed my...
The obvious spot for sunset photography in Corolla, North Carolina is Historic Corolla Park and the Whalehead Club. The Whalehead Club is a 21,000 square foot art nouveau home built in the early 1920's, complete with it's own lagoon and boathouse. The entrance to...
Not all seashells are pretty. This Knobbed Whelk shell was worn and battered, not to mention incredibly large, awkward, and heavy to carry around! However, I found the bright orange aperture--or opening--very striking against the virtually bone white coloring of the...
The mystery of the sea is very much alive, for me, in the Outer Banks. One of the neatest ways to touch this mystery is to find a bright colored piece of sea glass in a pile of shell hash along the beach. Like a valuable jewel, the colors--electric green, cobalt...
I dreamed of extended stays when I became a full-time landscape photographer. Every year a different location. Twelve months of intense exploration in a new place. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to realize that dream. Yet. Instead, like most other working...