N 35°14’12.95″ W 75°31’41.43″ Google Earth location
A few weeks back, I presented my favorite true B&W image; this is my second-favorite, though the rankings may swap depending on my mood, so be warned. And this is largely as-shot, with perhaps a slight tweak to brightness and contrast, but nothing that I couldn’t easily accomplish in the darkroom. A friend and I were out at the Outer Banks, specifically a beach access south of Hatteras Lighthouse in Buxton, NC, and I was carrying a film camera loaded with Ilford HP5+ because I was in that phase (and likely will be again.) I realized that the sun reflecting from the still water might make a nice focal point and fired off a frame or two; the bright light coming into the lens shifted it from a ‘normal’ exposure to quite a bit darker, which improved the moodiness of the image magnificently.
While I purposefully avoided extraneous elements, the unintended result was that scale becomes almost impossible to determine, potentially even being an aerial photo of a coastline, at least until you find the seagull tracks entering and exiting the pool at the bottom. Curiously, while I usually call this, “Tidal Pool,” it’s not, and appears and disappears in the same location from time to time. From looking at the aerial photos and bolstered by my own hazardous experience (yes, that’s the same pool,) I’m inclined to say it’s a drainage swale from further inland, perhaps only brackish despite its proximity to the ocean. So if you go to this location hoping to duplicate (or, dog forbid, improve upon) my image here, be warned that you may never even see this fleeting puddle.