THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 7, 1996 TAG: 9601040142
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 15 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Mary Ellen riddle
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
He huddles in his hideaway, watching the mud daubers build nests and the snails crawl among the reeds.
For hours he has waited like this, day after day, watching the water and the sky. He's not there to down a feathered trophy with a gunshot, but rather to glimpse the countless waterfowl that grace the salt marsh.
And maybe, this time, his patience will be rewarded by a successful image to place in his gallery.
For more than 20 years, Hatteras Islander Michael Halminski has communed with the barrier island ecosystem, which in turn has rewarded him with stunning shots of snowy egrets, pelicans and solitary stilts, beach elders, cold fronts, cloud banks and vivid sunsets.
The hours he's spent observing have turned him into a photographic master of the delicate and tenuous scenes created by the mercurial weather and myriad species that live and migrate through the island. Birds are his favorite subject matter, but he also has a passion for the sea.
Halminski fell in love with surfing while on a camping trip on the Outer Banks. Until then, his photographic experience consisted of jaunts to the race track to snap pictures of speeding cars. The roar of the track was replaced by the crashing sea as he snapped pictures of his friends riding the waves.
Halminski found that the joy of surfing was matched by the thrill he got from looking at the pictures later. He worked many jobs before making photography a full-time occupation. Carpentry helped pay the bills, as did a sojourn as an oysterman on a sailing skipjack in Chesapeake Bay. Photos of this fast-disappearing industry are some of the finest in his portfolio.
Halminski became intimately involved with the marsh and its inhabitants while working as a hunting guide at the Gull Island Gunning Club.
He was not keen on killing birds, ``but I learned a lot out there about waterfowl,'' he said.
He discovered how to predict land configurations while scouting on the refuge. This intimate understanding helped him choose spots to wait for birds to photograph. He maintains a real love for waterfowl, but turned strongly to capturing beach scenes with his lens to pay the bills. For the last 10 years he's concentrated on beach scapes.
Halminski, 46, has worked up a fat portfolio. His pictures of the release of the original red wolves have been published in Newsweek, his hurricane and building boom photos have decorated the pages of the Washington Post, and his work has claimed space in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
His ``Beach Elder,'' an exquisite composition of autumnal sea flora, graces the cover of ``Coast Watch,'' produced by North Carolina Sea Grant. He's represented by a New York City-based photo agency with work appearing in Spain, Australia, Japan, Argentina, France and Israel.
While Halminski's portfolio overflows with Outer Banks beauty, it's punctuated by shots taken in Costa Rica's rain forests of brilliant scarlet macaws and rich green foliage.
He's made eight trips to Costa Rica and expects to focus his lens in this direction more in the future. The self-taught photographer says he has enough stock photos piled up.
``I want to go back to the birds,'' he said.
He also wants to document the old fishermen from the area. Though he's concentrated mainly on nature shots, he would love to do a series of portraits of the men of the sea.
With his dedication to subject matter, marked by hours nestled in the duck blind with the snails and the wasps, any photographic endeavor Halminski undertakes is sure to be an eye opener. MEMO: Mary Ellen Riddle covers Outer Banks arts for The Carolina Coast. Send
comments and questions to her at P.O. Box 10, Nags Head, N.C. 27959.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by Mary Ellen Riddle
For more than
20 years,
Hatteras Islander
Michael Halminski
has communed
with the
barrier island
ecosystem,
which in turn
has rewarded him
with stunning
shots of
snowy egrets,
pelicans and
solitary stilts,
beach elders,
cold fronts,
cloud banks
and vivid
sunsets.
by CNB