Beautiful Losers

The last days of a monarch doomed to topple into the sea. And where might we be? Jekyll Island’s Driftwood Beach, where sea-ravaged trees become statuary. Atlantic tides undercut roots, and gravity takes over. Stripped of foliage and bark, sand-papered limbs seek salvation that never comes. By day their sun‑bleached trunks, limbs, and rootballs morph into monuments. By night, these ghostly spectators witness bioluminescence and phosphorescent tides.

We call such places bone yards. These beautiful losers will never leaf out. Still, we cannot deny that in death they showcase perfection—a photographers’ paradise. So dead they seem alive.

Behind The Photo Of the Week

Robert Clark and Tom Poland document the natural beauty, culture, and history of the American South. Their work blends rich narrative storytelling with vivid photography.

Tom Poland is a Southern author, journalist, and columnist. For his extensive work preserving regional heritage, he received the Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina’s highest civilian honor.

Robert Clark, a master photographer, has seen his work featured in prominent outlets such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, and Newsweek.

Clark and Poland travel the back avenues of the South to record disappearing landmarks, nature, ruins, and whatever catches their eye, as this series reveals.

This series records vanishing landmarks, nature, ways of life, and other facets of a vanishing American South.