What can 24 nights solo in our endangered Okefenokee Swamp reveal? Photographer David Walter Banks found something wild and haunting and alive. This is his tale - in words and art.
Words & Photos by David Walter Banks
April 2, 2024
The first night I spent in the Okefenokee Swamp, on a small wooden platform surrounded by water, I was embraced by a truly wild space in my home state of Georgia, serenaded by an Animalia symphony. On the second night, after a day spent paddling through corridors of mighty cypress draped in Spanish moss, I experienced the palpable and haunting mystery of the place.
Throughout history, naturalists and explorers have turned to terms like mystical and magical to describe this corner of Earth. In the classic 1770s Travels of William Bartram, the American botanist, ornithologist, and natural historian relates a legend he was told by the local Creeks of “a most blissful spot on earth.” This paradise was inhabited by “women of incomparable beauty” known as “daughters of the sun.” A hunting party of Creeks who were lost and on the brink of exhaustion were saved and revived by these women. And when the men returned with more warriors to take the watery Eden for their own, they were greeted by a vanishing isle, forever showing signs of life but continually out of grasp.
Whether this tale of an elusive utopian tribe is true, or whether there was a Bigfoot attack in these parts, as described in an 1829 newspaper article – that’s for someone else to decide. For me, these stories only reinforce my own intuition that there is more to this piece of land than its biological wealth. There is intrigue, a mystical energy that renders these well-trodden waterways terra incognita to the first-time visitor.
Storm clouds gather above leggy stems of Eriocaulon decangulare, ten-angled pipewort, along the water’s edge in Chesser Prairie.
Swamp loosestrife, Decodon verticillatus, is set aglow in this double exposure along the north end of Chesser Prairie.
Our world is saturated with imagery delivered in a way that makes it easy to scroll past. Viewers are more visually sophisticated than ever because of this bombardment of stimuli. In this photographic essay, I’ve injected fantastical visual elements into my documentary photographs, using in-camera techniques rather than post-production effects, to portray both the environmental and the spiritual significance of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. The slices of magic realism beg the viewer to question what they see and stop long enough to learn more.
At 438,000 acres, the refuge is one of the largest intact freshwater ecosystems in the world and home to more than 600 species of wild plants, 200 species of birds, 100 species of amphibians and reptiles, and 35 species of fish, including some that are rare and endangered. Already affected by climate change, and now under threat by industry, this unique place needs further protection before it is lost to future generations. Despite designation as a national wildlife refuge, North America’s largest blackwater swamp is still vulnerable. The refuge is protected, but its boundaries are not.
The swamp’s Big Water Lake pocked by driving rain.
Swamp grass gone to seed is lit against a sunset sky in this double exposure taken along the north end of Chesser Prairie.
Trail Ridge is the geologic formation that spans the swamp’s eastern boundary, where Twin Pines Minerals, a mining company, has proposed heavy mineral sand mining that would cover an expanse of roughly 8,000 acres next to the refuge. Environmentalists say the mining could lower the water table and lead to increased drought, greater susceptibility to wildfire, and the collapse of an entire ecosystem.
Before embarking on this project, I believed that those possibilities alone should be enough to preserve this special land. Once I set foot there, allowed into the waterways by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, my thesis grew. If we allow for the destruction of this place, we lose more than its biodiversity; we lose a powerful, if unknown, spiritual presence.
While working in the field, I sleep in a tent on small platforms or islands in the refuge, paddling my kayak 10-plus miles a day and documenting the route from dawn to dusk. The solitude provides an immersive experience of the swamp, allowing me to be more in tune with the natural rhythms of the ecosystem and unencumbered by outside influence save my paddle strokes and my heartbeat.
The Primitive Baptists who inhabited the swamp in the early 1900s placed great value on “inner life” and contemplation. For me, this strikes a chord, and makes sense for a people who called the innards of the Okefenokee home. In this untamable place, one finds peace and a quiet that makes looking inward a seemingly constant practice.
Mixon’s Hammock on the west end of Billy’s Lake.
Despite my advanced research of the flora, fauna, ecology, and history of this environment, my approach to this project has been more reactive and intuitive. I simply look, listen, and wait for what the swamp will reveal on any given day. It never fails to deliver.
For example, there is the swamp puppy, my affectionate moniker for my reptilian companions, in whose home I am only a guest. On one trip, I battled a cold that progressed over several days into full-blown fever and searing pain behind my brow. I was sleepless by the third day but, feeling better, I focused my creative energy on a nearby spider. I yearned for a more exciting subject but was still too weak to seek it out. So I simply asked for my favorite swamp critter to pay me a visit. “Here, swamp puppy,” I called in a sweet, high-pitched voice usually reserved for my pit bulls. I chuckled to myself, as I probably hadn’t uttered a word in days.
To my surprise, when I turned from my outdoor spider studio shoot, this big lug floated up within a few feet of my platform, awaiting his session. Sure, I can think of more nefarious reasons for my scaly companion’s arrival, but I prefer to think it was just reluctantly doing me a favor.
As usual, the swamp provides.
Sometimes, of course, it provides lightning, driving rain, and swarms of mosquitoes. Or other unwanted things.
A campfire burns as night descends on Stephen C. Foster State Park, one of the main entryways to the Okefenokee.
A slow exposure during a rainstorm on Big Water Lake.
On many trips, I’ve spent the night in a 98-year-old hunting cabin on a small island reached by kayak. On one trip, I woke suddenly at 3 a.m. and sat up in my sleeping bag on the wooden floor of the empty room, quietly listening. The noise that roused me repeated. I leapt to my feet, full-tang tactical knife and bear spray in hand, hoping to need neither. I yelled, stomped, and banged on the wall like an angry lunatic, peering into the darkness but never catching sight of my heavy-footed visitor. Fearful but exhausted, I went back to sleep, assuring myself it had been a bear, not a human. Or Bigfoot.
On my next visit, I was startled awake again. This time, it was a thumping noise, footsteps that seemed lighter, more inconsistent. Upon fear-driven investigation, I discovered an adorable armadillo grasping what I assumed to be fresh bedding between his claws and hopping back underneath the floorboards.
Altogether, I have spent 24 nights inside the reserve and paddled about 250 miles, observing the wonders that unfold throughout the seasons. I have seen bears scale trees until they toppled over the waterway, creating a clumsy makeshift bridge. I have stared at the Milky Way, communing with the stars as only one can in a Dark Sky park certified by the International Dark-Sky Association. Above all, I have listened and watched as the swamp revealed its secrets.
I hope the body of work I have created captures not only what can be seen, but what can be felt: the unmistakable yet ineffably mystical quality of this primordial space. ◊
David Walter Banks is a photographer and native Southerner based in Atlanta, Georgia. His work ranges from stylized portraiture to documentary photography. His clients have included TIME Magazine, Apple, The New York Times, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Mother Jones, ProPublica, Toyota, The Wall Street Journal, Target, The Washington Post, Variety, and Red Bull among others. His work is in the permanent collection of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library – Yale University, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, and the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection at the New York Public Library. He has lectured at Western Kentucky University, Ohio University, Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, University of Miami, SCAD, UNC Chapel Hill, University of Montana, and UMass.
