Savannah, 1980

Elaine Longwater, an old friend, passed away recently. She was independent and free-spirited with a big, generous heart, a strong business woman and a fine artist.

I don’t remember when we first met, but in the early 80s we were both part of a photo-centric group of friends. I had just moved back home after a year and a half working on a road crew, doing exploration drilling for lignite coal, and was looking for something, which I still can’t articulate.

I was spending a lot of time then walking along the Diamond and Shipyard Road causeways, photographing the marsh, looking for some kind of insight, maybe a bit like Thomas Wolfe’s longing for “A stone, a leaf, an unfound door….” (“Look Homeward Angel”) How elemental, how simplified can a composition be and still be dynamic?

Elaine’s home was a modest cottage on a large, wooded lot with enormous azaleas and camellias, fronting on a tidal creek with a long marsh view, on Burnside Island, at the end of Shipyard Causeway. It is a restful place, always seeming just on the edge of wildness, with the ebb and flow of water in the creek, and the light defining and redefining the landscape, ceaseless reminders the world is bigger than us.

She gave me an open invitation to go there anytime, whether anyone was home or not, to just hang, or photograph. I even did some oyster roasts, and there is no better roast environment than a chilly fall evening on a riverbank, on the marsh, with a big roaring fire.

It became a playground of sorts, a place where I could experiment, technically and aesthetically. I could try stuff just to see what it would look like. It didn’t have to be good, or satisfy client or critic. Failure is a big part of learning; there I was free to do that, and learning is so much easier when you are having fun.

We had some fun. We made some art. We made some memories. RIP Elaine.