For years, I held onto the dream of photography through alcohol addiction and homelessness. I had periods of finding housing and losing it again, jobs that came and went, friendships that were strained or lost. I am not estranged from my family, but they often were perplexed and hurt by not knowing how to help me. I lived a grinding loneliness of day after day looking at my society from the outside, literally.
The dream was of a long-term photographic study of the current state of the ecosystems that comprise the million-plus acres of Olympic Wilderness. This dream kept me moving forward when most of the hopes I’ve had for my life dissipated into seemingly ceaseless consumption of alcohol. How many countless times have I stared with an abiding hope at the Olympic Mountains rising above the Sound on the horizon west of Seattle?
As the winter of 2023 began to unfold, a real fear within me stirred, a deep sense that my life truly was beginning to pass away from me. I believe a number of factors contributed to this grave unease. I am halfway through my 57th year on this earth, and Real Change records show that I bought my first paper in 2004. I have done other things as well: a short period in construction, odd jobs out of the Millionair’s Club and several multi-month journeys into the Olympic Wilderness. During the pandemic, I was fortunate to live at a very good friend’s place on 15 acres in remote Mason County. However, all in all, I have lived in poverty for 20 years.
Homelessness is definitely getting worse, evident through the sheer number of people, the growing hard drug problem and the sweeps that just push people around creating further conflict among homeless people. In the summer of 2023, I had my shoulder broken during an altercation with another homeless man. He had been swept from downtown for the MLB All-Star game, and I was defending my safe place to sleep. As I endured the cold of another winter, I absolutely knew I had to change myself, and what that meant clearly was I had to quit drinking.
I made the decision to quit and created a deadline for myself: Dec. 22, 2023, the day I flew home for Christmas. This would give me two weeks’ sanctuary. While at home, after a number of serious discussions with my family about what my future would look like, I made a second very important decision. I was going to return to Seattle and, by combining selling the paper with a direct appeal for financial support from friends and neighbors on Phinney Ridge, I was going to raise the necessary funds for my vision of Olympic wilderness immersion photography.
I had a very simple plan: eight to 10 hours a day of paper sales and promotion of my vision on Phinney Ridge. This was and has been the foundation for the successful termination of my drinking.
These two decisions, as well as committing myself to the time and effort it took to follow through in their execution, rapidly changed my circumstances. I am now in the longest period of continuous sobriety I’ve experienced since moving to Seattle in 1994. Between my return to Washington on Jan. 7 and when I left for the Olympic wilderness beaches on March 7, selling the paper and promoting my vision to friends and family produced the funds necessary for me to launch my first wilderness immersion photography exhibition of 2024. Lake Ozette and its neighboring wilderness beaches became my choice.
I absolutely do not consider these two months of wilderness immersion photography as being homeless.
During those 60 days of immersion, I camped at 20 different locations on the beaches, lakeshore and river and in the coastal forest. I rose a half hour before dawn, working the day through to twilight, capturing the defining moments of beauty and life that embody the Olympic Wilderness. This time of disciplined meditation on visual beauty in wilderness solitude inspired my understanding.
I am an artistic expression of transformation, from homeless alcoholic to wilderness immersion photographer. Embracing my changing identity has empowered a growing beauty in my work and created an intense resolve to complete what I have started: the Olympic Wilderness LightWater Life Visual Symphony. A two-year, 10-location wilderness immersion photographic study of Olympics, with the goal of creating one of the best visual natural histories yet produced of and in our national parks.
With this in mind, I will be leaving May 20 for the Brothers Wilderness, with a plan of spending another 175 days this year in four Olympic Wilderness locations.
Bryant Carlin is a Real Change vendor. His badge number is 9059. When he’s not in the wilderness, he sells Real Change in Phinney Ridge outside of Ken’s Market, Herkimer Coffee or Fresh Flours Bakery. Find more of his work at bryantcarlin.smugmug.com.
Read more of the May 15–21, 2024 issue.