Change is descending upon an otherwise quiet, unhurried, unobtrusive, place. The main highway, U.S Route 17, that bisects South Carolina’s “lowcountry,” north to south, is being widened to accommodate commerce, tourists, and urban refugees. Not only are many homes, some historic, disappearing before the tracked blades of expansion, but also the new, faster thoroughfare encourages greater disregard and obliviousness to the charm and culture the basin harbors.
This collection of images and thoughts is a tribute to, and an acknowledgment of, the respect the modest souls of this region, obscure from the mainstream, deserve for their tenacity, good humor, social commitment, and acceptance of the ebb and flow of the often incomprehensible vagaries of existence.
A photographic adventure became an artistic journey and culminated in a unique awakening to an otherwise overlooked cultural phenomenon. While the road ends in water, it began there as well.
Bio
Eliot Dudik spent his formative years on a central Pennsylvania sheep farm, the experience sparking his interest in landscape and environmental photography. He studied photography as an undergraduate at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina, and received, with honors, a Bachelor of Science degree in Anthropology and a Bachelors of Arts degree in Art History. Eliot solidified his passion for photography while working in a photographic gallery and operating a fine art printing and framing business. During this time he completed extensive monochromatic photographic documentation of Capers Island, an uninhabited barrier island off the coast of South Carolina. Convinced that art photography is his future, Eliot pursued and completed a Master of Fine Arts degree with honors from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Eliot recently published his first monograph, ROAD ENDS IN WATER, a photographic and cultural study of the South Carolina “lowcountry.” He is currently marketing this body of work while creating the images for a subsequent project.
For more information, please contact Eliot Dudik at:
eliot@eliotdudik.com or visit www.eliotdudik.com