Ha! I had to look that one up. Yes, elegiac. Perfect description of this photo. This island I found by a string of fortunate events. First, I was visiting my mom in Jackson, Mississippi and drove out to a cypress swamp to shoot. Then, on my drive home, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a tree growing out of the water about a mile or two down the shore of the lake. I hiked out (brutal hike through a mile or so of snake and spider infested woods) and shot that tree. Then, I went and got a $25 blow up pool raft and rowed (beside the shore, to avoid the hike) out to this tree on Easter morning to shoot it again. Later that night went to google satellite maps and pored over lake and found a big cluster of trees in really shallow water about a mile off shore, a local told me later than these trees are on a sinking island that still appears during droughts. I then upgraded my pool raft to a blow up kayak and found a place two miles away to put in. I rowed three miles, approximately, to reach the trees. I went to shoot the sunset and was having so much fun I just spent the night. That was 12 hours in ankle to waist deep water with nothing on but running shorts and shirt, though it got down to low 50s that night. How we suffer for our art?!

– Troy Dalmasso