Photographer Daniel Pullen’s special homegrown art

By Maggie Miles, from Outer Banks Voice

Earlier this month, the N.C. Coastal Federation awarded local photographer Daniel Pullen with their Pelican Award for his volunteer work documenting the organization’s Hatteras Island Oyster Roast, litter cleanups, and oyster restoration events, as well as his advocacy describing the impact of shoreline erosion along the Outer Banks.

The award is an annual recognition to individuals, organizations, and groups who have made significant contributions to the protection and preservation of the N.C. coast. Recipients for the award are celebrated for their efforts in environmental stewardship, advocacy, education, and helping to safeguard the environment for future generations.

Pullen, who has been documenting the realities of life on a barrier island for the past two decades, has a special skill in fusing fine art with documentary photography to create powerful images that showcase the beauty and fragility of the Outer Banks. Although he has received many prestigious accolades over the years for his work—including being recognized by Time Magazine in its Top 100 Photos of 2020 and the North Carolina Press Association’s Photographer of the Year in 2021—this award is particularly meaningful for Pullen.

“This one’s really special to me because it’s more community based,” Pullen told the Voice. “It’s essentially about preserving our home and our wetlands and everything. So just to be able to be acknowledged that I have some small part in helping with that is a massive honor.”

A Hatteras Island native who lives in Buxton with his wife and three children, Pullen, 48, began his photography career as a wedding photographer in 2003. He explains he had always been fascinated by art and photography since he was a young child, noting that he would also opt for the book “that has like 90% photos and 10% words. I’ve always been image driven.”

That fascination grew when he started experimenting with disposable cameras in high school. And it was with a disposable camera that he documented in his first hurricane, Hurricane Dennis, in 1999. According to Pullen, the storm was doing donuts off the coast for two and a half weeks.

“And there were no weather systems to move it away. So it was just doing donuts on top of us. And it washed out Highway 12, coming into Buxton,” says Pullen. “And so I was going out photographing a couple of houses that fell in, and a couple of vehicles were stuck and slipped over because the road wasn’t there.”

His parents saw his interest and a friend of his dad looked at his work and told them that Daniel had “it”—an eye for composition—and that he had the skills to really make a career of it. He was encouraged to get a Film SLR. According to Pullen, it was right around the time that digital cameras were becoming the new thing, but not many people had actually made the switch yet. He couldn’t afford a digital camera, so he bought a used Film SLR and started shooting weddings to pay the bills.

About a decade ago, he began working with Lynn and Ernie Foster on an article about Day at the Docks, an annual community heritage celebration on Hatteras Island, photographing commercial and charter fishermen. Pullen says this spawned his relationship with the N.C. Coastal Federation as they used some of the photos from the article. He began by photographing the Coastal Federation’s annual oyster roast.

“They recycle all the oyster shells that they use to stabilize the shorelines,” says Pullen, who explains that the Federation inspired him to have that mindset of how he can be of service. “And it’s what can I do to help? What can I do like you guys? You guys are trying your hardest to keep this place the way it is. What can I do to help you guys do that?”

From a lineage of nine generations of Cape Hatteras Lightkeepers Pullen has never had the urge to leave the island. According to him, he traveled to other places but there was never anything in him that wanted to leave.

“And it’s…almost to a fault… if that makes sense,” he laughs. “Because everybody just sees the awards and success now, and they’re like, man he’s getting this all this recognition. And it’s like, they don’t see the work leading up to that.”

But for Pullen, it’s never been about awards or accolades.

“It’s always just been about trying to document life on Hatteras…the experience of living here, and I think it just resonates with so many people, and that it’s such a unique situation living on a barrier island off the coast of North Carolina that it kind of it draws attention to itself,” he says.

Pullen’s art and advocacy are intertwined, with his photos naturally reflecting his desire to document and preserve the unique character of the Outer Banks. For some of his most famous and impactful photos, like the wave about to crash into the pool table in a beach house, it was about being in the right place at the right time.

“I couldn’t go make that image again right now if I wanted to,” says Pullen. And the conditions are a little different than his wedding photography, taking photos in high winds, sideways rain, and getting pelted by sand. “So just trying to protect the camera myself and the camera the best that I can.”

Then there is the human aspect of navigating how to document people in extremely vulnerable situations.

“Especially after hurricanes, when you’re going into people’s houses, and their houses are flooded. Like that balance of photographing somebody at their most vulnerable, their house is completely trashed, you know, flooded, and here I come walking in with a camera…and trying to find that balance of helping and documenting it.”

Pullen’s work is about documenting the place that he loves and capturing what life is really like here. But he also hopes his work will continue to bring attention to the challenges and changes the barrier island faces.

“My hope is to be able to continue to document this stuff, and to show not only the beauty of this place, because that’s the obvious, but the beauty of the people that live here and the community that lives here, and showing how much that means to me.”

To learn more about Daniel Pullen and his photography visit Daniel Pullen Photography, and follow him on instagram.