ABOUT BALD HEAD ISLAND

"Everything comes together for me here with the three things I most love; family, film and time. This is as perfect a place for me as I will ever find." —Charles Dennis

From 1993-2003 Charlie, our son, Sefton, and myself traveled regularly to Bald Head Island.  This magical island is located off the coast of Southport near Wilmington, NC.  It is an island of constantly changing visual richness.  Surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Cape Fear River, this island of beaches, maritime forests and saltwater marshes was a never-ending source of photographic study for Charlie.

Each year we traveled to the island—mostly in the winter months when the island was less populated.  Charlie endured freezing temperatures and bone chilling winds in order to be stationed on a beach, in a marsh or in the woods.  He returned year after year to the same locations in order to capture the same image and compare it to those taken in prior visits as a means of study.  He wrote extensive work notes on lighting, variations of filters used, film and lens changes. 

Often my son and I would accompany him onto the beaches, woods and marshes.  Bald Head Island allows no cars to be driven by its residents, and golf carts are the mode of transportation.  We packed our golf cart, often before dawn, with so much equipment that there would be barely enough room for the three of us.  Most nights Charlie slept fully dressed so that he could move more quickly to his location in the pre-dawn.  We loved going out into the dark with him, but the bitter winds could be brutal.

 After hauling and setting up the tripods and cameras at its location, Sefton and I were frozen stiff.  While we retreated to the golf cart and layered ourselves with blankets as winds rocked it from side to side. Charlie sat for hours in the woods or on the beaches shooting roll after roll.  We could often hear him cursing as his frozen fingers dropped a new roll of film on the sand as he re-loaded.   We tried our best to be helpful, but the cold was often too much for us.  All we could do was to run cups of hot chocolate and coffee down to him.  He was never happier than on these trips and yet he never felt that his work was complete.  His notes are filled with remarks about what he needed to accomplish upon his next visit—always with the qualifier, “if I make it back next year.”

About Bald Head Island he wrote, “I want everyone to see what I am seeing here.  Every detail must be captured; the light on the marsh grasses, the footprints washing away on the beach, the first sliver of morning light in the clouds of East Beach.  Long after I am gone, I hope to leave these images as a reminder to the perfection found in our world. No one should just pass through this.  I hope to make people stop and feel what perfection nature has created.  If I can do that with my images, then I will have left a piece of me behind.”

On his final visit to Bald Head Island in December of 2003, Charlie was in a wheelchair.  We brought all of his cameras and equipment with us although we knew it would be difficult for him to shoot any film.  He was very weak, and had little more than a year left to live.  As he rode the ferry across to the island, I could see his eyes filling with tears.  He knew he would not travel to Bald Head again.  He spent most of the week in a bed, and was filled with sadness.  On the fourth day, we loaded him and his cameras into the golf cart.  We drove him to all of his favorite places.  I believe that he said good-bye to the tree he called the Dragon Tree, to the boathouse and to the magnificent East Beach where together, the three of us watched the setting sun.  Although he could not stand, he shot one last roll of film.  To this day, it remains undeveloped. 

We visit Bald Head Island often.  We know that he is there with us.