Tucked away along the shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay in Norfolk, Virginia, sits a strip of road speckled with seedy motels along a gorgeous beach.  The road is bookended by fancy high-rise hotels and a golf course to one end, with a US Naval base on the other.  The character of these places takes on that of the drifter, the traveler; broken down, incomplete.  Some of the occupants are hiding out, some trying to get away, and others just looking for the next stop.  I walk by another strip of motel rooms with some boarded up, and others a seeming semi-permanent residence for the lone occupant inside.  I stop and knock on the door, hoping that the middle-aged shirtless man laying on the bed will see some sort of kindred spirit in my tired eyes when he answers.  Hoping he will let me document his private existence, even if only for a minute.  I’m not so lucky the first time, nor the next five.  Finally Mike answers the door, another middle-aged shirtless man, this one with a story to tell, but a weariness of strangers.  Again, my answer is no, but Mike keeps talking.  Mike is a metal-worker on ‘vacation’ because ‘his grandmother died’…’again’.  Mike tells me stories of times long past in an alcohol-induced stream of consciousness and laughs as he flicks off the kids a few rooms down with both hands.  Eventually he sees it in my eyes and my voice, I’m not some outsider looking in.  I’m just another wanderer by heart, trying to understand what this lifestyle is all about and where it leads and why.  In a way, I’m him.  He offers me an egg-roll.  I decline but say I’ll settle for a picture.  Mike steps outside, shirtless and barefoot in the freezing temperatures, and sticks his thumbs in the air.  The images may fade in time, but I won’t soon forget Mike.

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David Walter Banks is a photographer who is based in Atlanta, Georgia. His column, “Transience” appears every other Friday. He is a Founding Member of LUCEO Images.

Tucked away along the shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay in Norfolk, Virginia, sits a strip of road speckled with seedy motels along a gorgeous beach.  The road is bookended by fancy high-rise hotels and a golf course to one end, with a US Naval base on the other.  The character of these places takes ...