In the past year I’ve been especially drawn to photographing subjects lit primarily by moonlight. The resulting images almost look like daytime but there is a quality to them that I don’t think would happen in any other light.

The Rivernecks

Medium format slide film, yashica twin lens, St. Augustine, dancer in the square. Not square dancing.

Technological determinism — technology defines the culture. The car, the surfboard, the road adventure exhaling toxins all along our merry way.

A lifetime had passed since I’d last been to the places where I first began surfing. St. George Island. Cape San Blas. They get waves? I kind of remember…just barely. I moved to St. Augustine 6 years ago for school and a slightly more active side of the sea (many consider the East Coast pretty flat mostly but with respect to the Gulf of Mexico, it’s magic).

I would make trips occasionally to my hometown but the extra 2 hours to the beach just didn’t seem worth it when I knew the Atlantic would likely have much better offerings when I returned . Something about having the option to surf in the Gulf possibly taken away snapped me out of that apathy.

The Deepwater Horizon Oil disaster began while I was still in Australia. BP tapped on the Gulf of Texaco’s gag reflex and she spewed her contents for most of the summer. I don’t think anyone could have imagined it going on for as long as it did. When my mom asked me if I’d like to go to the beach and possibly surf, I was pretty skeptical. Was I going to get this crazy dispersant all over me and get sick? Were the beaches even going to be open? I couldn’t find any solid information on the spots we usually went to. There didn’t seem to be any reports of oil having gotten that far. So, we loaded up some surfboards, Harpo the dog, food and water and set off to find out.

Carrabelle beach. We stopped here for a lunch break. This beach is sheltered by barrier islands so it's typically very calm. As a kid, pre-surfing, we came here a lot. On the drive there are some passes where, if there is a little wave, it will come through and give a clue as to what to expect on the islands or the cape. Also, this was Harpo the Dog's first experience with the beach.

The drive is as much a part the adventure as is the time at the beach. Sopchoppy, Panacea, Lanark, names that probably mean nothing to those who haven’t taken this ride before. For me, the little town signs and landmarks are seared into memory, mantra like, repeated in order and then reversed. Sheltered flats and barrier islands are visible for much of the stretch of 98, Carrabelle, pine trees, Tate’s Hell, old dock posts and pelicans, Eastpoint…turn left to St. George Island or keep on going through…Appalachicola and on to Port St. Joe/Cape San Blas.

I have vivid memories of aggressive sea gulls on St. George Island coming after any signs of food because so many people would feed them. These Carrabelle gulls were pretty patient and passive...just. waiting.

As we approached San Blas, I caught sight of some orange boom through the trees. My heart sank. I never saw more anywhere else but I still don’t know why it was there.

And then it was onward to Cape San Blas/Port St. Joe, one of the Gulf coast spots I grew up surfing.

The water seemed clear when we arrived. There were no warning signs, no lines in the sand or workers in white suits, no strange sheen on the water or tar balls on the sand…just a few people on the shore and playing in the water and some teeniny waves.

For novelty and nostalgia and a love of lefts, I couldn't resist these miniature miracles. The bathtub similarities don't end with the stillness. Jumping into the water here is not a refreshing, cooling, plunge on a hot summer's day. It's just diving into a different state of matter. It's exactly like the air, but liquid. Suddenly, you are wet and weightless but still sweaty and suffocating.

I'd somehow never ridden a proper longboard at my home breaks. No wonder I probably only surfed a handful of times between the ages of 13 and 18. It takes an act of god to get these places over shin high. This was my first time logging in the Gulf. Yew!

There was a this kid on a boogie board that started trying to stand up on it when he saw me getting waves. I grabbed the fantastic plastic fish and asked his parents if it would be ok if I pushed him into a few. They were from Alabama and the boy's name was Hayden. He was five years old and stood up on his 2nd wave. After a while I let his dad take over and they played with the board until it was time to go. Hayden never said a word to me until he was leaving (in an adorably southern accent), "Thank you."

Happy. Portrait by Mom. Borrowed surfboard (thanks Liz...) by Richard Prause / Grasshopper Surfboards

Happy. Portrait by me.

When it was time for us to leave, I noticed some funny little black particles washing up. They didn’t look or smell too oil-like to me, but I still took a sample anyway and sent them off to some friends. It’s good to be sure. If the beaches are clear, people should know so they can enjoy them. And if not, they need to know which ones to avoid. Thanks to Russ the Florida DEP who passed the sample along, and sent me this great map that shows detailed areas of interest relating to the oil disaster in the Gulf. http://map.floridadisaster.org/GATOR/index.html So far, it looks like areas east of Panama City have remained clear. This coupled with the news that the well has been capped and reports that the oil is already showing signs of clearing are giving hope. While the oil may not be running up the Eastern Seaboard as was predicted in the worst case scenario tales, we cannot allow ourselves to forget the ongoing devastation that has occurred in areas not so fortunate.

C.E.O. Shrimp at Social Security Prices Oil Free

We got up early to catch morning light and glass from an elevated perspective provided by the St. Augustine Pier. Chris tested out his new log from Scott Anderson, Nick’s board ran into a piling, Jacob surfed in his skivvies, fun was had by all.

The Hands Across the Sand event was started to gather support against offshore drilling. Given the climate after the oil spill, participation grew a great deal from the first event in February (check out Lauren’s video from then).

Also, this is an absurd celebration of Independence Day, explosions and the insanity of the beach on that weekend.

Finally, my friends found tar balls on our beach the other day. Pretty sad…Lauren has been doing some good documentation of it over at merseabeaucoup. Her video:

The other week I filmed with him and a few other crew. I can’t even approach his wordsmithing so I’ll just quote:

Fiberglass Runways Host a Mustache Fashion Show

A few of the Oldest City’s die hard toe curling fanatics have gotten their mitts on some custom aquatic sidewalks handcrafted by the Dirtona Dwellers of The Peninsula Holding Company. Last Saturday offered up some sectiony little salt water speed bumps so we here at the production company took to the atlantic (before BP ruins it for everyone) and slid our brains out. Great boards are even radder when they are made by good friends, and fitted with one of a kind fins crafted from broken skate decks. Personally, for me, the Peninsula Holding Company lamp tail slider is the go to noseriding vessel for summer time log jams. During this little gem Surf Station’s Rachel Bardin captured some sliding by Matt Fotte on his Chad Doyle shaped “Mustache Rider”.

In another sector of the surfing spectrum, here’s some rip shredding and wipe outs filmed few weeks ago.

The sun and ships and hearts

This photo is (and arguably many of these images are) inspired by conversations with Mark Parrish, an artist I recently interviewed.
We talked about many things but one was about how he wanted to have a fresh approach to painting the ocean and beach — looking at it in less common ways.

creeks and lakes. gators and crocs.

I was thinking a lot of about Australia and Florida and, at one point in my travel journal, wrote something about alligators and crocodiles.
And then it was revealed, the perfect marriage of gators and crocs. Plus boogie boards and spray on sunscreen.

We will talk such a tough armor

intermission/inner mission

Surfboarding is a fun activity and popular pastime.

that hat is your friend.

P.S. “40,00 flies” by Bukowski = amazing.

“It’s so easy to be a poet
and so hard to be
a man.”

It's got the anti-inflammatory!

In Ybor, there’s this guy named Cephas with a food and juice stand that was once a full restaurant. The main part burned down years ago, apparently due to a coffee maker. So now, there’s just this hut you walk up to and this Jamaican man who will make you one of the more disgusting drinks in human history: the Aloe Shake. For about 6 or 7 bucks, you can attempt to ingest this frothy mixture of water, aloe and ice all while getting insulted and hearing an endless list of the miraculous curative properties of aloe.

Carrie took me to Cephas Hot Shop for the first time maybe a year or two years ago. I couldn’t even make it through one cup. He told everyone we were with how fat they were, how aloe cures cancer and everything else, and taught us to do this weird dance, which was essentially skanking, to mix it up in our stomachs. “It’s like soap for the inside! You have 23 feet of small intestine!”

This time, Cephas was less distracted by the BMI of my companions and paid close attention to calling me out on my poor chugging abilities.

“This ain’t no whiskey! Just lean your head back girl and say, ‘this is for my health!’”

I made it through one and a half cups, dry heaving intermittently.

The aloe shake escorts me to the suburbs of vomit village. My body has a pitiful, substanceless rebellion — a puking pantomime. Carrie and Ari are aloe shake champions, vera victors, drinking down their cups with ease while I sip, suffer and gag.

The amazing part is, the drink makes me feel really great. I’m not sure if it’s aloe itself or an adrenaline rush from the challenge of drinking something so truly unpleasant. People line up at the stand and many locals make it a daily ritual, so there must be something to it…whether it be the substance or it’s charismatic salesman.

After he's done extracting the crucial goo, Cephas gives you the remaining stalks and directs you to rub them into your skin. "It gets rid of the bumps!"

http://www.cephashotshop.com/

Random photo. The Minnow!

Cities are monuments to human strangeness and a bizarre urge to control, to contain, to put borders on anything from drinking water to countries.

Hand painted lettering owns plastic signage always.