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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
A couple packs up after a day of summer surfing near the Avalon Pier. The biggest swells won't arrive until fall. Since the '60s, when surfing made its way here, the sport has steadily become embedded in OBX culture, and pros from around the world come to sample the waves.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
Tree swallows swarm after eating wax myrtle berries at Jockey's Ridge, the tallest active dune system in the eastern United States. A few miles from here, the Wright brothers took to the air. They would have found plenty of inspiration among the OBX's hundreds of bird species.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
I found these folks packing up after a day on Nags Head beach late last May—at the kickoff to summer tourist season—when I was riding my bike around taking pictures. The population skyrockets near the Fourth of July.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
As a shy 19-year-old, I joined the photo service in nearby Virginia Beach. We snapped pics of tourists and sold them prints. The job taught me how to talk to strangers. That skill and my camera have taken me around the world.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
A woman enjoys the OBX's finest entertainment—the theater of sky and ocean.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
The beach is for "boy meets girl," where teenagers perfect the art of hanging out.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
Nags Head hired a carnival to celebrate its 50th anniversary last summer.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
Newlyweds Alaina and Justin Crowder pose with a couple who paused while strolling on Kill Devil Hills beach to wish the youngsters good luck. In the past five years the wedding industry has exploded in the OBX; there were some 2,000 ceremonies in 2011.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
A pompano (soon to be released) is reeled in near my home in Nags Head on this ribbon of fragile barrier islands. The wild beauty and weather of this place have beguiled me since I was a kid, but now along with other inhabitants I wonder how long the islands will remain.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
Skippy learned to surf as a puppy and can hang with the OBX's best surfing dogs.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
A Nags Head boy demonstrates the art of drinking from a bottle while riding a skateboard towed by a dog.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
A Manteo crowd gawks at a mako shark hauled in during a fishing tournament.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
The Fourth of July marks an annual high point during the Outer Banks tourist season, when people fill up 8,000-plus rental houses.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
Following tradition, Nags Head homeowner Jim Soyars (left) donned his flag shirt and matching flag hat and danced at the neighborhood Memorial Day bash.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
Not much can beat the Fourth of July on the beach at Nags Head.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
Since it was established in 1883, the Coast Guard station, now at Oregon Inlet (in the distance), has changed its location four times due to dramatic shifts in the Outer Banks coastline.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
November waves, the last vestiges of the tropical storm season, crash against the pilings of vacation homes on South Nags Head.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
"Do you need a fish that bad?" I shouted at this boy as he repeatedly cast a line into the heaving sea. "Do you need a photo that bad?" he shouted back. We ended up agreeing that we were both a little crazy for being out on the Nags Head Pier during a nor'easter.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
My neighbors Billy and Sandra Stinson watch a squall roll over their house on Roanoke Sound. Hurricane Irene destroyed the place last August.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
This was the view from Billy and Sandra Stinson's porch on Roanoke Sound before the house was destroyed by Hurricane Irene.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
The Stinsons and their daughter Erin sit on what was left of their summer home after Hurricane Irene blew through.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey
Sometimes I sit for hours just admiring waves: the aesthetics of each curl, the way the wind shapes a break, the colors morphing and shifting as a swell rises. Ultimately the waves will transform OBX. In that way each is both a harbinger of the end and a work of art.
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