| Tuesday, October 25, 2016 | | It’s Déjà vu All Over Again – Yogi Berra | After the Outer Banks dried out from a soggy Hurricane Hermine (more like Tropical Storm Hermine by the time it impacted our part of the coast), we had what seemed like an unusual number of cloudy and rainy days in September. Labor Day weekend was a washout, but those of us whose livelihoods depend on visitors in one way or another still had a strong fall to look forward to.
Then along came Hurricane Matthew, not forecast to approach our coast at all, and “only” a Category 1 storm when it did arrive. Who could foresee the widespread damage and flooding—much of it historic—that the Outer Banks would experience? Six plus weeks of rainfall culminating in a record-rain event in Matthew overwhelmed our sandy soil’s ability to absorb any more. Storm drains that likely were clogged with debris after Hermine were unable to handle Matthew’s great volumes of rain, causing unprecedented flooding in neighborhoods usually dry, and higher-than-usual water in other places just beginning to dry out after September. The fact that the storm arrived smack in the middle of Columbus Day weekend, effectively ending the season for businesses that suffered damage or catastrophic loss just made its impact that much greater.
I kept thinking I should drive around, take pictures of all the flooding, but honestly, my heart wasn’t in it. We—meaning my family, and our galleries—had no real damage. Even the power outages were more annoying than debilitating for us. Maybe that helps explain why the impacts suffered by neighbors—residents, homeowners, businesses, hit so hard. It could so easily have been ours, too.
Back in 2011 after Hurricane Irene, and in 2012 after Hurricane Sandy, I found myself in a creative slump. The drought, an uneven mixture of sadness, weariness, and an uncharacteristic apathetic fatalism, needed Nature, both the seeming inflictor of the wound and the victim, to somehow become the healer, to point the way toward beauty once again. I think I said then, my earliest photographic career was as a journalist. The role of reporter, of documenting damage, is an important one. But it is not my heart’s role any longer. I need signposts of beauty and hope. I need to find them, and if necessary, I need to carve them, out of light and shadow, water and air, feathers and fur.
Here are the signposts from the past six weeks or so that have pointed me in the direction of all that is beautiful still. I hope they do for you what they continue to do for me.
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click for larger image | This juvenile Yellow-crowned Night Heron was way out of place, hanging out at Outer Banks Pier after Hermine. |
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click for larger image | The Canada Geese that winter over in our little cove at The Waterfront Shops in Duck are back in full numbers now. I never did see goslings here this spring. |
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click for larger image | This Great Egret was stalking along the shoreline when I asked if it could please stride over by the dock for a photograph. Almost immediately it changed course for this image. |
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click for larger image | I love the full moon in a cloudy sky. This night, I asked for the cloud and light to shape a heart. Then I waited. Here is the gift. |
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click for larger image | Both storms kicked up a tremendous amount of foam. That is Avalon Pier in the background. |
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click for larger image | Sometimes the skies after a storm are the loveliest. Here, I used a Neutral Density filter to slow my shutter speed to allow the motion of the waves to soften. |
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click for larger image | I love the pink glow of sunset on the ocean. It doesn't happen all the time, which makes the sight all the more special when it does. |
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posted by eturek at 12:13 PM |
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