The damp soil, the salty marsh air, a graveyard of sassafras timber, and a heavy fog saturate the locations the place winding streams and rivers run into the ocean. Through his black and white panorama sequence “Tidelands,” Photographer Parker Stewart invitations viewers to mirror upon the quiet moments of the marsh.
Parker’s Introduction to Photography
Stewart grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina, and developed an curiosity in images when he was within the seventh grade. He found his love of the craft whereas taking photographs on his brother’s digital digital camera. He captured something and all the things that caught his eye, from skate boarders and surfers to the pure world throughout him.
Later on in highschool, Stewart lived on a ship within the Caribbean together with his household for a yr. That expertise touring at sea throughout such youth is what impressed him to pursue images as a career, selecting to attend faculty for images.
In 2011, Stewart moved to Savannah to check images on the Savannah College of Art and Design. Shortly after graduating in 2015, Parker established his images studio, Parker Stewart Studio, in Savannah, Georgia. However, it wasn’t till 2020 that Stewart started documenting photographs of the Low Country with intention.
“As an emerging landscape photographer, I was always looking for opportunities to get out of Savannah and travel west or abroad to photograph the grandeur. When the pandemic happened, and I wasn’t traveling as much, I began to really discover the quiet grandeur of coastal Georgia and the Low Country. I started spending more time on Little Tybee, Wassaw, and Ossabaw, photographing the untouched beaches and the eroded trees, the dense interiors and beautiful oaks, and most importantly, foggy days in the marsh looking for unique places and subjects,” stated Stewart.
The Process of Photographing the Low Country
Stewart’s work goes past easy landscapes. Using composition strategies, absence of colour, mild and shadow, climate patterns and natural material, Stewart’s images evoke feelings, sensory experiences, and–for a lot of–nostalgia.
“The adversity of the weather became very important when putting together this body of work,” stated Stewart. “I felt like arriving at these locations on days of rain, fog, or overcast weather adds another layer of beauty to the landscape. It’s really just an added layer of atmosphere, which makes the image more evocative. My process includes meticulously researching locations, weather patterns, and the tides and going out by car, by foot, or by boat to these beautiful places to make photographs. A lot of early mornings and going back to the same places many times until the conditions are right.”
The Tidelands Exhibition
Stewart images the Low Country, aspiring to encapsulate the thriller of the coast and the wonder that exists throughout the archaic marshes of the Deep South.
“I want viewers to walk away with an appreciation of the quiet moments in the landscape, and take a moment to sit with the image and see what sense or memory it might evoke. I also hope that witnessing the beauty of coastal Georgia and the Low Country will drive people to want to help protect this wild place that we call home,” stated Stewart.
The “Tidelands” exhibition is at the moment displayed on the Telfair Museum’s Jepson Center in Savannah till Dec. 7, 2025. To additional discover the portfolio of Parker Stewart, go to parkerstewartphotography.com or @parker_stewart_ on Instagram.