Savannah, 2025

I should take long walks in the woods, in the rain, more often. It’s an analgesic to the cacophony of the world war on facts and empathy.

My generation expected to have jet packs for personal transportation, flying cars, and transporters to beam us up. Still waiting. One prediction that has finally arrived, also late, is the Newspeak language from “1984.” In 1983 U.S Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Well Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore.

I’m assisting an old friend and teaching colleague who is bringing a small group photo workshop to Savannah soon, and my goal is to show these folks something more than the sole focus on Savannah’s Landmark District (the old town) that most visitors get. For part of that, I have Skidaway Island State Park on our agenda, to see something of the wetlands environment that is the “Low Country.” I took a drive out there to see what kind of shape the park is in, thinking, because it was raining, to take a short walk on the trails to make sure it is a viable shooting location. I wound up walking all the way back to the river, about an hour an a half round trip.

It’s not the first time I’ve gone to the marsh for peace and quietude. Growing up, my school bus crossed a large expanse of open marsh twice a day, every day. A little later in life, I wandered along the edges of those areas, playing with the kind of graphic images you can get from the complex simplicity and infinite spectrum of colors and textures of grass, mud, and water. But what fascinates me more is the transition space between open marsh and the lowland forests next to it, a place where something is always being born, and something is always dying.

My first time in the park area was when the island was still a private landholding, accessible only by boat. After the creation of the state park (and the construction of two bridges and a causeway to provide access), I’ve dropped by off and on for years. At first there were no formal trails or infrastructure. You just roamed through the marsh and floodplain areas at will. Now boardwalks elevate you above the wetland areas, and the trails are formalized and mapped.

In 1983 I did some nude photographs of a young woman swimming in one of the creeks that flow through the area, but I had no idea that we would be such trend setters. On my latest walk I found that spot to be a designated photo station. Not kidding. Unusual, interesting idea. The sign tells you how to use the cradle to hold your smart phone and then where to upload the photos to become part of a long range series of images from that spot, to create a time-lapse portrait of how the area changes over time. Cool. Maybe I should send them some of my nudes.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index.