Yadkin River

Sometimes it takes a village to make an image.

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Or at least some friends that aren't afraid to get into the river on a December afternoon. This image has been living inside my head for about a month.

 

Dance for the River is now officially on the road, opening next at SECCA Febuary 8th 2018. So, the photo shoots officially ended this past summer. But then this image popped in my head and wouldn't go away, plus I wanted to round out my series with a few winter scenes. Thank goodness this first weekend in December was warm, 65 degrees warm. One week later we have 6 inches of snow!

This project has been an incredible journey for me, and this last shoot could not have happened without the help of my photography friends, Dave and Lauren Clark with DesiLu photo and Ward Swann from Outdoor Provision Company that offered to put his beautiful new canoe on the river for me and show up ready for adventure in a dry suit and nylon line to make sure our dancers did not float downstream without a paddle! I think even with the swanky looking dry suit, Ward got cold hanging out in the river for 30 minutes while I waited for the dancers, boat and river to align perfectly.

And of course the amazing UNCSA dancers, Elizabeth and Claire Finfgeld.  I feel incredibly lucky to have so much support for this project. and I'm super excited to add this new work to the exhibit when it opens at SECCA.

Dance for the River Summer Series

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It's been a busy summer and the Dance for the River series is about wrapped up and I'm already thinking how hard it will be to choose only 25 images to build the exhibition this fall. It's been such a journey to explore this river with the dancers and with our Yadkin Riverkeeper, Will Scott. I've learned a lot about threats to our river and the importance to make a stand in some way for clean water. It's a gift that should be protected.

My first of three shoots began inside a 3' pipe kneeling in a trickle of water that is the beginning of the mighty Yadkin.

The trickle flows out of the pipe into a small creek surrounded by a road crew doing a major expansion on Hwy 321 in Blowing Rock.

 

The creek becomes a river as it joins the Tailwaters at Kerr Scott Dam where it becomes the drinking source for Winston-Salem.

From the Tailwaters it travels through Ronda and Elkin, once a hub for many textile industries and mills along the river. I was chasing a rumor about cows in the river. A major threat to the river is agricultural run off which causes of silt in the river. I didn't find any cows bathing in the river on this float, but I did find new home construction that had clear cut a path through the buffer of the river. Buffers are as important as fencing in cattle in terms of protecting from erosion and run off.

While this section seemed isolated, we had a few reminders of civilization by the intake pipes for the town of Ronda's drinking water.

The last shoot took us under I-85 where the Yadkin River empties into several lake, finally resting in Badin Lake near Salisbury.

So, get out on your rivers and creeks and learn about ways we can come together to protect them.

Narrows Dam

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For 90 years, Alcoa owned and operated an aluminum smelter along the banks the Yadkin River, specifically Badin Lake. During that time, cyanide, fluoride, PCB’s, PAH’s and other toxins, including arsenic, were generated and disposed of through Alcoa’s 13 outfall pipes into Badin Lake and outfalls into Little Mountain Creek. Hazardous materials were also buried throughout the community of Badin at 44 identified locations, without liners. Buried waste continues to contaminate ground and surface water around the old Badin smelter.

Now under new stewardship, with Cube Hydro Carolinas LLC, the river has a newpurpose, but Badin and High Rock lake still have a long way to go to heal it's waters from decades of pollution.

My shoot last month with two dancers from Helen Simoneau Danse was a stark contrast to earlier shoots I've done on the Yadkin where water flows freely.

“I felt a sense of blocking, but I was also listening to what the space once was before so much pollution and non-organic activity was there. It was as if I was trying to listen to the memory of that kind of spirit. Hoping it was still underneath, hoping it will come back in the future. So I think I was mostly focused on the little heartbeat that I heard there.”
— Jasmine Hearn
“I felt very small in that space. The energy felt very sickly and I didn’t feel a lot of life coming out of that water. The water seemed to only be moving when humans flipped a switch to turn the movement on. So, today I did feel somewhat stifled in my movement.”
— Burr Johnson

The good, the bad and the beautiful. 2016

Life really is made up of little moments, and those little moments can create a beautiful tapestry of community. I took a step back in 2016 and followed stories that had weight to things I felt were important, as well as stories that just made my heart sing. I've realized that we are sometimes removed from people or cultures we don't understand. Black, white, brown and everything in between, we are all part of the melting pot called 'Merica. And my hope this year was to do my best to reflect that through my camera and capture all the little moments that make us a community and connect us.

A traditional river baptism on Hilton Head Island, SC. The Gullah, a civilization living on the Sea Islands of South Carolina have upheld its West African legacy for more than 100 years through cherished traditions in spirituality, music, food and language.

 

A cooking class taught by refugee families, summer concerts, bike racing, explorations in the woods, water fights , a wedding , family gatherings, music, dance, the fair,-Using my camera to reflect all the little moments that connect us helped to created my 2016 tapestry of community photojournalism.

I also launched a new project called "Dance for the River" , which is a collaboration with UNCSA, the Yadkin Riverkeeper and other local dance groups to create an environmental message about our river through the art of dance. 

The Dixie Classic Fair

Women from Syria and Somalia donate their time during a luncheon and cooking class in a West End home in WS, NC

A hug goes a long way when you can't get out of your home very often. Senior Services provides hugs, meals and many other services for the Elderly of Forsyth county.

I even managed to survive a mountain bike trip through the Swiss Alps and come home to find an orphaned fawn that adopted us.

A UNCSA dancers leaps, fluid and beautiful, against backdrop of a Duke Energy coal ash pond that borders the backyard of a Dukeville, NC home. Unlined ponds leaked into the groundwater contaminating many wells in this community. This is part of a bigger series called "Dance for the River"

Biking through the Swiss Alps was no joke. Made me want to take up hiking.

"Farrah", our resident fawn follows one of our guests looking for more treats.

2016 ended with the loss of so many great people and new political challenges to try and understand and navigate. My hope for 2017 is to create stories that give voice to our fears and to communities that we may not understand. I live in East Bend. It's about as rural America as you can get- My hope is to bring some of the stories from here to life as well as continue to explore the lives of recent refugees as they try to make this country home. You don't always have to travel far to try and create change in understanding.

Yea. Tree climbing was one of my favorite past times as a kid too. I still love it, although it's tricky getting back down sometimes.

Preparation for baptism of teenagers at Hilton Head Island, SC

Backstage at UNCSA

So, here's my 2016 in a nutshell. I hope you enjoy and find a little inspiration!

 

 

Dance for the River, Shoals to Donnaha.

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In the second shoot of Dance for the River project, my focus on what this project means to me and how it will relate to the Yadkin River gets more fine tuned. This past Sunday, I worked with Helen Simoneau and two of her dancers, and while it was amazing to see what these dancers were capable of in such a new and challenging environment , it was also their first experience on the river. Will Scott, the Yadkin River Keeper, was along to help paddle canoes and experience one of the first shoots for the project.

Will Scott, Center is surrounded by Helen Simoneau, on right and her dancers Jule and Julianne. Will's dogs dash and new addition, Dobbs were along for the ride as well as his girlfriend Ashley (in background)

 

I see this project as fine art meets environmentalism. My intention is to not only create images that reflect the beauty of the river and the human form, but to also bring attention to the fragility and environmental threats to our drinking source.

Helen, Jule and Julianne. Shoals.

Helen and Jule, Shoals.

Words are not my medium, images are. I think Will encompassed the project best in his statement: " "Even though over 700,000 people get their drinking water from the Yadkin River, few realize the threats-from agricultural pollution to Stormwater runoff to millions of tons of toxic coal ash-that face North Carolina's second largest river basin. This project will give human scale to the enormous problems that face the river today."

Helen and Jule, Little Yadkin near Donnaha.

Julianne Harper, Shoals. " It was my first time on the Yadkin, and my first time paddling a canoe--I was able to check a few things off my "never have I ever" list. I enjoyed all of the locations, but I guess my favorite was the tree growing out of the rock. I liked having the goal of trying to match the tree's lines/shape, and exploring the other parts of the rock on that mini island. I was just thinking about being another tree, but there were moments when I felt like a mermaid too." 

Helen: "It was an exciting and overwhelming day to shoot in so many locations while trying to soak in the beauty and majestic landscape of the river. I had never been to the river in all my time living in Winston-Salem. It was powerful and made me feel like the sky and the earth were connected in a way I had never considered.”

 

This will be a challenging but important project that will blend our Arts community and local River community together. I can't wait until the next shoot! Here are a few out takes from Sunday, enjoy!