Hear Middleton talk about the allure of Wadmalaw Island at at City Gallery at Waterfront Park on February 9
Although photographer Marcus Middleton has lived in New York City since 2010, he refers to Charleston as “home.” Middleton lived on Wadmalaw Island, where both of his parents grew up, until second grade when he moved to Texas and later Illinois, following his dad’s Air Force career. He graduated with a business administration degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia and eventually landed in New York.
About 10 years ago, during a months-long stay inWadmalaw, Middleton began studying photography, using the largely undeveloped Sea Islands as his muse. His love of the islands inspired his 2023 installation in the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center entitled “Calling Me Home: A Visual Ode to the Lowcountry.” An expanded version is on view at City Gallery at Waterfront Park through February 9. Here, Middleton shares why visiting the island where he grew up and capturing its people and landscapes is healing.
First Exposure: A friend gave me a point-and-shoot that I didn’t use until a year or two after I moved to New York City. I started playing around with it—not seriously at all, not even as a hobby—but it got to a point where I really liked it. In 2013, I bought my first camera and slowly started to teach myself.
Capturing Wadmalaw: In March 2014, I moved back to Charleston. I hadn’t been out of New York City for almost four years. I was burned out, and I really wanted to go home and regroup. I took many photos and taught myself how to edit. Most of the learning came during the editing process. Wadmalaw was my playground at this point. I was studying photography while I was living in Charleston, nothing more nothing less. After about six months, I knew I could make something of being a photographer, but I couldn’t evolve there. So I made the difficult decision to move back to New York.
Developing a Career: I was lucky to have friends who owned a small theater company, and they hired me to shoot an event as soon as I moved back to New York. I’ll always be grateful for that because not everyone has a door to go through immediately. It was nice to be getting paid while having opportunities to learn and grow as a photographer. The bulk of my portfolio is theater and events, but I do almost everything under the umbrella of photography. At the heart of it, though, I’m a photojournalist. I approach everything as storytelling. My superpower is capturing the energy of the moment without people even knowing there’s a photographer around.
Calling Him Home: With my photos of Wadmalaw Island and the adjacent Sea Islands, my hope is for people to see it how I see it—with their hearts, not just their eyes. Most South Carolinans will be familiar with Wadmalaw, but few ever go. Whenever I cross the Esau Jenkins Bridge, it’s like going back in time. It’s the definition of Lowcountry living. If you want to get a sense of what the Lowcountry used to look like, used to feel like, take a look at Wadmalaw. I hope it stays the way it is. Some people won’t find “underdeveloped” appealing, but I’m overcome with nostalgia whenever I’m on Wadmalaw. Something about that nostalgia is restorative and rejuvenating for me. It’s medicinal.
