58 Years In The Wilderness-Signature Color Prints
Drake's Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore, California
Drake's Beach, Late Sunlight, Low Tide, Point Reyes National Seashore, California, 1972. First published in the revised edition of "Island in Time: The Point Reyes Peninsula" by Harold Gilliam and Philip Hyde, 1973, Sierra Club Books. Eliot Porter's "In Wildness Is The Preservation Of The World" with quotes by Henry David Thoreau, Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" and the first edition of Philip Hyde's "Island In Time" all came out the same year, 1962. Eliot Porter, Philip Hyde and other wilderness photographers began to publish color photographs in Sierra Club publications with encouragement from Executive Director and Editor David Brower. The transition to color would soon surpass other trends in landscape photography. "In Wildness" contained all color landscape photography, while "Island In Time" was a mix of color photographs and black and white. Philip Hyde was a master of both mediums. The original edition of "Island In Time" helped in the campaign to establish the National Seashore. Today Drake’s Beach has more fences, signs and regulations. At the edge of the parking lot signs warn that samples are taken "weekly to determine if the water quality is acceptable for water contact recreation." Another sign reads, "WARNING: Oiled Birds and other marine life may wash ashore due to an oil spill that occurred in San Francisco Bay." A third sign reads, "Warning: A Mussel quarantine order has been established by the California State Department of Public Health and is effective in Marin County. Mussels may contain poison unfit for human food. Label should also state, 'For fish bait only. Do not feed to pets.'" Walking on the once pristine beach, trudge through traces of toxic sludge and discolored foam, breath deeply and notice that the ocean smells a little too salty.
