Vortex

[Barefoot]

It was planned for weeks in advance that a friend and I would travel to the Down East region of North Carolina for a weekend of shooting in the area that I lived in for over twelve years but that she had never been to. As luck would have it, the remnants of tropical storm Ida and a Nor’Easter were pushing up the coast and had left the area inundated with water from both heavy rains and what the winds had pushed in from the Pamlico Sound. Many roads were impassable and the rivers and creeks were so high that I couldn’t show her most of the places I longed for her to see.

All that aside, we enjoyed one another’s company and ate well. We both managed to shoot several hundred frames, but mine were all pretty much worthless. I find it more than just a little bit ironic that the only image I got the entire weekend that I cared anything at all for does a fine job of illustrating how, photographically speaking, the entire trip went down the drain for me. I hope Mare did better.

[casil403]

I quite like this BF....the representation of your weekend...it also looks like the hurricane that screwed things up for you too!

[Mad Aussie]

It's hard to believe that someone like you who shoots so well could take several hundred shots that "were all pretty much worthless."

This is a nice simplistic shot that fits with your story so well though.

[Marko]

I really like the simplicity here - very nice!

[Fortytwo]

Obviously I haven't seen the rest of the pictures, but this is a really nice one! I really like the simplicity of it (has that been said already?). Sometimes when you go out to shoot nice pictures everything you touch turns to sh*t. It happens, that's life. Everyone can lose their mojo once in a while. You've got at least one picture you care for, and it's a really nice one as well. But still, I hope next time will be better for you. I'm sure it will...

[kat]

You know what shots I like the best! I love it!

[AntZ]

Cool shot Barefoot.

[Barefoot]

Sometimes you guys are just too kind. But, I always appreciate it.

I see these simple images of a single rock or a dead and broken tree or maybe a few blades of grass protruding from the surface of a calm body of water and I flip over them. Always wanted one of my own so the first place I took Mare was to the banks of the Neuse River where it joins the Pamlico Sound. The river is over five miles wide at that point and its shoreline is littered with drift wood and rocks with a spattering of spartina so I was sure I’d get my shot there. Somehow, it just didn’t work out the way I’d hoped, but I’ll hold on to them for a while until I’ve had a chance to do better.

We left the Neuse and took off for the little fishing village of Pamlico and along the way stopped at a boat house on Spicers creek to shoot a beautiful old skiff that had a fresh coat of white and red paint just sitting inside all alone. It should have been easy enough to get some great shots of it, but I somehow didn’t. Down the road a ways was Pamlico and just as it came into sight, the road was submerged in several inches of water where it crossed Brown’s Creek. This is brackish water that you don’t want to spray the underside of your vehicle with, so I slowed to ease through. That’s when I noticed the whirlpool on my left where the gorged creek entered a tiling that would normally be visible but was now covered by the high water. I stopped and popped of a few then got back in the truck and went about our way.

Maybe it was a good thing that I didn’t think so much about such a simple thing at the time or I’d have screwed it up too, somehow. That just the kind of weekend it was.