The coastal plain is the flat edge of North Carolina from the Outer Banks to the Fall Line where the land hardens into rock and begins to rise toward the Appalachians. It was once an ancient seabed scoured by waves and currents over geologic time extending 125 miles from the current coast. Shells and the teeth of massive megalodon sharks can still be dug from the marl.

Water moves sluggishly across the plain, flat as a kitchen table. It typically loses only one foot of elevation per mile. Blackwater creeks feed major rivers – the Chowan, Pasquotank, Tar-Pamlico, Neuse, and Roanoke – that empty into the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds.

The blackwater creeks interest me most, intimate water often barely deep enough to float my kayak with cypress and tupelo trees reaching overhead.

Because my passion is water and light, my photographs are organized by river basins.