Toxic Beauty

After getting up at 4a to drive south to Cape Hatteras National Seashore in the pitch dark and setting up on the beach with great anticipation, the sunrise didn't "cooperate." There were no clouds in the sky and thus very little color. I played photographically with some of the backlit waves and shorebirds which nest in the Arctic and winter on our beaches, but the all important light and color just weren't there. So I decided to hike around a bit in Cape Hatteras National Seashore and came across this "orphaned" pond back in the dunes. The sun's early morning yellow light was over the barrier dunes and illuminated the grasses and algae-ladened water with inspiring intensity. A polarizer (like sunglasses) helped me control the amount of detail and depth that we can seen into water. The bird track patterns mirrored the living and dead flora and the biting insects completed the "circle of life."