Uh-Oh

Just 30 minutes off of the South Carolina coast sits an Island named Fripp. Not much happens on this popular golf resort, but when something does happen it does not take long for word to spread around this six and half square mile island. So after a yacht had gone down in the island’s canal it did not take long for tourist to swarm at the mouth of the passage. By the time that we had arrived, crowds were standing around with their smart phones photographing crews dredging the gut of this half-a-million dollar yacht that was in route to its owner. My goal with the images was to get ones that would tell stories from a perspective that others wouldn’t normally get. I wanted to display their story by showing the tools of trade used by the crewmen and the struggle that they faced. However, this was a difficult task when I could not talk to any of them because they were busy, plus, I was just like the other seventy tourists standing around.

My favorite image is “Big Bear.” Hanging above the door on the yacht, was the sign “Big Bear,” which I thought was a perfect description of the man who was working on the boat. He was a man of big stature, burly grey beard and his clothes only added to his masculinity. Then it happened, this man went into the ram shackled ship. It was as if the stars aligned just for me. So I framed it up and waited for what seemed like an eternity, then the man came out of the wooden door and looked around. As soon as my shutter clicked, I knew I had the image.