I’ve never lived in a place like North Carolina, where the ocean is so close that you could visit every day if you wanted. It was my husband’s first duty station in the Marine Corps, and while there were of course some things that we didn’t love about it (I’m talking about the heat!), we enjoyed the adventure that was living on the coast.

Going into this spring, we knew that we would be moving away and that we would miss all of the little things that made living here so special. We started taking ocean walks every chance that we got, in the rain and in the sunshine, when it was chilly and when the wind blew strong. A few of these times, the beach was completely empty. We would walk along and see nobody in either direction looking up and down Emerald Isle.

It was beautiful and peaceful, and I’m so glad that I began bringing my camera along every time. The snapshots that we took in these last few weeks are some of our favorites from all of the years that we lived at Camp Lejeune. Looking at them here from our new and very different home in Arlington, Virginia, we can still feel the salty air on our skin while we searched for shells in the sun, the wet sand beneath our feet on an overcast Sunday morning, and the joy that we felt when our dog ran back and forth at the water’s edge trying to play with the tiny sea birds.

And that feeling, that magical power of a photograph, that is why I love my job.

Emerald Isle, North Carolina / Outer Banks film photographer

Photographer | Jessica Slaunwhite
Film lab | Photovision