[piano intro] [mellow music] - [Heather] We are capturing the beauty and character of North Carolina.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, we have millions of ways for you to see North Carolina in a unique and stunning light.

Join us as we tag along with photographers who capture subjects that are beautiful, groundbreaking, sometimes haunting.

Yet together truly inspiring.

[camera clicking] It's all on My Home, coming up next.

[country music] All across the state we're uncovering the unique stories that make North Carolina, My Home.

♪ Come home.

♪ ♪ Come home.

♪ ♪ [camera clicking] [upbeat music] - You really can't beat North Carolina as the premier outdoor playground with beautiful landscapes and views for miles.

- [Heather] Well one group of photographers really loves to get out here and roam around to capture those views.

[camera clicks] - Well, that's perfect for that- - Yeah - For just the landscapes.

- [Heather] But it's the collaborations that are really quite special.

[upbeat music] - [Woman 1] I saw the rugged side of Mount Hammond.

- There you go.

[camera clicking] - [Man 1] My home and sea off road.

- My Home, NC off road, that's right.

[upbeat music] - It's magic honestly like, getting to meet people who love the same kind of stuff and like in a place as beautiful as this, I don't know change, changes my life a lot in a lot of ways.

- So our group is Roam Outdoors, you can find us on Instagram.

- So I feel like with what we're doing, we're sharing the beauty of one of the most beautiful places in the world.

[upbeat music] - Right now we're on Hawksbill Mountain, which is part of the Linville Gorge area.

So it's one of the spots to be for a sunrise, sunset, you have the 360 view.

[upbeat music] - Perfect, thank you.

- To our left we have Table Rock, then we have Roan Mountain, we have Sugar Mountain and Grandfather.

[camera clicking] - [Man 1] Most of us are landscape or nature photographers.

[upbeat music] We do have a couple portrait photographers.

You know, we all have our day jobs.

It, it's kind of get away from the daily stress and daily routine.

[upbeat music] - [Woman 2] We're all different, all different background.

Cause we have that common love of photography.

We have the common love of the mountains and getting outside and exploring.

- We have other hikes planned and the water in Linville Falls, cause of the rain I think it's, it's gonna be nice.

- That's gonna be pretty.

- [Man 1] That's our next spot.

[upbeat music] - [Man 2] I'd say the Linville Gorge has definitely become one of my top places.

Just all the special memories and moments that I've had here just really makes it top of my list.

[upbeat music] There's one back that way, right?

Just different from anywhere else around here in North Carolina, I feel like.

It just feels like you're in a totally different world.

[upbeat music] Doing the whole Roam Outdoors, it's been great just meeting new people.

You know, I like it just because a lot of us are different kind of shooting styles.

You know, all of us shoot different and being able to talk about it with each other, you know, just to let people experience something that they've never been able to experience.

[camera clicks] [upbeat music] We are going to go to the Linn Cove Viaduct right here.

- [Woman 1] So this is like a rarity to be able to walk on the parkway.

- [Woman 2] It is.

- [Woman 1] Cause we're on the Blue Ridge Parkway right now, but it's closed because of the weather.

- [Woman 2] Right.

[upbeat music] [camera clicking] - A lot of people that will message me or comment on my picture and they'll say, thank you so much.

You know, I haven't seen that place in 30 years.

I haven't seen that place in 40 years and you've brought me back to that moment where I first saw it.

And it is the most touching thing, and that's what keeps me going in this.

- [Man 1] It's just the enjoyment of being in the mountains.

It's, it's a reason to get out.

[chuckles] - [Woman 3] That's kind of the beauty of it there, is that you get to collaborate and you get all those different perspectives in one spot and you can find a way to mesh 'em all together and make something new, you know.

[laughing] [upbeat music] - [Cassia Rivera] When I first get out on the trail, it's my favorite part of the start of my day.

The smell of bears, it's a sweet musk, it's just the most amazing scent out in the wild.

As I'm walking sometimes the fog is still on the ground, and so it's really heavy and rolling and it looks other worldly.

That's truly one of my favorite parts of it is that for one day in my life, everything turns off.

It's just me out there with them in all wildlife really, and, and the trees and the grass and, and the sunrise.

It's just nothing compares to that in my mind, it's just a place of true solace.

My name is Cassia Rivera, my home is Holly Springs, North Carolina.

So my life consists of homeschooling my children five days a week and studying, researching, photographing the American black bear seven days a week.

Organization is the key to how I do everything.

And also making sure I get that quiet time every night to plan out the next day and be able to hit the ground running when I wake up at 5, 5:30 in the morning.

I can do work then and then homeschool and then more work after.

That's kind of how I juggle it when I'm not in the field.

It is 2:40 in the morning and I am making my sons their lunch for today because when I'm gone it's important they still know I love them.

I'm gonna always leave them a little note so they know that I'm still with them.

[door closes] [car starts] A tactic that I use in driving in the middle of the night to bear territory is just to hug the inside of the two lanes.

If a bear decides to cross right in front of that car he's not gonna have a chance.

People don't realize they're driving through some of the most densely populated wildlife areas in North Carolina and really the country.

I actually get questions all the time.

A standing bear, is it aggressive?

You know, that's a huge misconception.

They stand to gain intel and to be able to connect sight, sound, and hearing together.

So standing bears are curious bears, they are not there to attack.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna park right here and we're gonna go on foot.

So right now I'm looking for newly shaped grass trails.

Sometimes when you see an opening you might find a sleeping bear.

And of course always remember to look up.

You have to understand their cues because they will literally communicate right from eye contact.

They use their ears, their mouth, their posture.

So if you can pick up on what they're communicating to you in the very first encounter, you will have a successful and respectful and peaceful time with them.

Because at spring they prefer sedge as their vegetation.

Sedge is a grass like plant and it's really high in protein.

And you can tell the difference between sedge and grass because a sedge is a thick triangular blade.

I'm gonna peek around this tree line, and if we don't see any, we can move on.

All right, back to the car.

[chuckles] There's just not, there's not enough sign of them here.

So I've seen worry, furrowed eyes from a mother.

There was a great divide between two cornfields and there was a male passing through and this mother with very young cubs.

And I could see the worry and concern on her face.

A week or two after that, I could see her goofy face when her and her children would play together.

She had a difference of body language when she was protective versus playing with her kids.

What are those things?

I can't tell.

Oh my gosh, I can't believe how calm it is right now though.

That is so wicked.

[camera clicks] [upbeat music] Yeah, he sees a bear I bet.

Look at the position of his camera.

All right, so I'm gonna try to see what he sees before we get to him.

It's another owl.

[camera clicking] Is that another owl?

That's incredible.

[camera clicks] Look, how proud he's standing.

[camera clicks] I'm also involved heavily in photo donations to BearWise program, bear rescues around the country.

I've launched a bear class for the first time, it was a dream come true.

My goal is to reach as many people as possible with education about bears.

[mellow music] That looks like a mom.

Hi, sweetie.

[camera clicking] What a beautiful bear.

Sometimes the paws will suction into the mud and you can see her walking very slowly and carefully because it's the mud is sucking her paw down and now traveling quicker.

[camera clicking] [mellow music] Look how carefully.

[mellow music] Do you see how beautiful that bear was?

Her ears, because they stayed forward, they stayed up, her ears staying up, her posture not changing, her traveling in the way she was going.

Just shows that she was comfortable with where we were and good to go.

A lot of people don't know this but maybe half of the time, my two boys are with me.

They are the ones that help me choose the photos because I really value how they see the world.

They see it purely and they see it how I feel everyone should see it.

I very much rely on them to show me which ones speak to them.

The owl preening itself, that was an amazing encounter.

Awesome photograph of that.

One of my favorite photographs was of the bear and her habitat, the leaves, the wood, the water was just absolutely gorgeous.

I can't wait to work on it and tell everyone about her.

I absolutely am passionate about teaching others.

Just learn the behavior of the animals that you wish to know more about in the wild.

And you will have an amazing encounter, they will open up their world to you.

And that's what the bears have done for me.

[mellow music] [mellow music] ♪ [camera clicks] - What am I looking for when I come into a house?

Kinda look at things two ways.

You know I wanna document things, but I also want to create photographs that are really nice artistically.

[camera clicks] [mellow music] [upbeat music] ♪ My name is Watson Brown.

My home is Tarboro, North Carolina.

A passion is actually my house here that I've retired to which is an old 1850s house that I've restored.

Come on, come on, come walk with me.

I guess my relaxation passion is my photography.

[upbeat music] ♪ Never had a class in photography but I learned how to do some finer editing and adding certain textures or overlays that make them look very different.

I could give them different moods.

Gothic, make them look like a, an old English oil painting.

[upbeat music] I was kind of an unusual kid, when I would go on trips with my parents or friends and they were talking and thinking about other things.

I was looking at buildings and houses.

[upbeat music] All of a sudden, I just get the urge to get out.

Got a book of North Carolina county maps that I use.

I'd rather just take this book of county maps, go to county and just start driving.

I get lost all the time, but I don't worry about it.

We're gonna go up into the Northern part of the county which still has quite a few abandoned buildings.

I'll travel all over east of North Carolina.

Most every road I can find, trying to find treasures, ways of life.

Sometimes people.

And the owners have said we could go up and kind of explore around them so, that's what we'll do.

[upbeat music] And I see quite a few houses that are really wonderful pieces of architecture like this and they're overgrown.

[upbeat music] [camera clicks] It's almost symbolic of what's happened in the state, in the country, you know, with rural areas they've just declined.

[upbeat music] Every time I come here the lighting's always a little different, different season.

I take tons of photos.

[upbeat music] And now when I take basic photos, I'm much more conscientious about how I see it, how I angle it.

What I know will be a better composition.

Over the years my eye can just zoom in on it.

This case you you see the federal wainscoting with the redid blocks.

[upbeat music] The light might be coming through the windows.

Look at this scorch marks, it's amazing this place.

My understanding is that there was a tenant here that set the house on fire.

[upbeat music] You hear all kinds of stories when I talk to people and you know southerners love to tell good stories.

I started showcasing my art.

What intrigued me the most is is that these people really loved what I was doing.

People have said that my photography is so good for awakening memories in people.

- [Woman 4] His work is very exciting and dazzling yet it does maintain the focus of the North Carolina subject matter.

So Watson's work is based on the work of the important early 20th century Southern photographers such as Eudora Welty or Bayard Wootten.

Watson goes outside of the margins with his pop art color and his drama.

I dare say that there are examples of his work that get quite Bohemian.

[upbeat music] He has a number of magic processes.

There are screens and filters and saturation tools and overlays.

- And then I start playing with the different textures.

Sometimes I don't have a clue what it's gonna end up being.

- [Woman 4] The printing method is called an ultrachrome print, which is a newer ink method that has UV filtering properties.

So it's a guaranteed hundred year life on the print.

- [Watson Brown] I think what has evolved in me is the joy of transferring to other people to just learn how to look and appreciate what we've got.

Because if you're not careful it won't be here.

[upbeat music] - I've had people tell me, whenever your name comes up in a conversation they're like, he's been talking about this project for like four years.

[laughs] And so the imperative for me was to collect dirt at specific locations around the South.

[upbeat music] And I wanted to bring somebody along to help me document that trip.

And so I asked Titus.

You know, there was an older woman that was just walking right there.

- Yeah, turn around.

I'm a documentary photographer.

What Dave and I do I think that the other thing that we that we really connected on is that our work is about presenting this counter narrative about situations and about, about people about the world that we both, that we both live in.

[upbeat music] - So I'm Dave, also Brooks.

- I'm Titus Brooks Hagens.

- [Dave and Titus] And my home is Durham, North Carolina.

[car horn honks] - So every spot that we stopped at had some significance to either of us, for me, the the spots were about specific things that happened in Southern hip hop back in the nineties and bleeding into the, the two thousands a little bit.

So a studio where something was recorded.

So we're here at the world famous, Stankonia Studios for the first stop.

First sample collection for the dirty south art project.

And right inside here is where a lot of Southern hip hop history was made in the nineties.

Collections of dirt at these specific spots are going into shrines that I'm building.

That revere, these lyrics that I grew up with that were motivational for me.

The reason I collected dirt was about the place.

Uh, here I'm at a house that uh, was the original Dungeon.

Here's the final stop on the Georgia leg of the dirty south art tour.

I'm here in LaGrange, Georgia.

I'm here on McCosh Mill Road.

It's all about the place, like none of these things would've happened if people wouldn't have been in the places where they were.

And that's why it's so prominently featured in each of the pieces.

You have to look through the lyric to the place.

- One of the things about anything about my life that's related to art is the fact that it was only a couple of years ago that I realized that I was a Southerner.

One of the things that's very important about the south.

And I think that we, we tend to forget now is that the south is about the land.

It's about the dirt.

It's where our blood, it's where our sweat, it's where our tears, it's it's where everything that we are really about, where it all comes from.

When I agreed to go on this trip with Dave, one of the things that I knew was that we were going to be going to a lot of African American neighborhoods.

And the question for anyone that's, that's black you think well, wait a minute I'm going into these neighborhoods with this white guy.

And the question for me is is this someone that is not going to say the wrong thing?

And I knew that I could trust Dave in that as I walk up to people and I'm talking about photographing them that Dave was never going to do anything stupid.

[laughing] That was either going to put what I wanted to do in jeopardy.

You have to feel comfortable with people that you're doing this, this kind of work with and you're gonna be in a car with someone for five days.

You know- - You definitely got comfortable.

- You gotta, you gotta know 'em.

[southern music] - So the way the trip started was we flew out to Houston and we rented a car.

We went to Home Depot, got some five gallon buckets and a shovel and set out on our, our trip.

- I never really, really photographed in Houston.

And so I grew up in this small neighborhood but I never photographed in my neigh, in my neighborhood.

But I realized that much of my work comes out of the fact of that neighborhood.

And it's about telling the truth about who poor people are.

They're poor people who don't get much respect when they're outside of their community, but when they come back into their community, they're Mister, they're Reverend, they're leaders of the neighborhood.

And so I have a tremendous respect for who they were and who they are.

- We see a, a man walking with some children on the street and Titus is like, I'd like to talk to him.

- Go back to the store on the corner.

That guy that's in the uh, that has his t-shirt off.

I really wanted to photograph him because he had had these three kids.

And I was- - They were adorable.

- Who yeah, well not only were they adorable, but they adored, they adored him - Him.

Yes.

- And it was important to me to take his, take his photograph because it worked to the spell, the myth, the notions about black men and, and their, and their children.

- The trip for me was transformative in many ways.

There were pieces that I was working on before we went on this trip, that when I came back to them they had a completely different meaning or a deeper meaning or it changed the way that I present them and talk about them.

- [Producer] What are you feeling right now?

[deep breath] Can you not talk?

[sniffles] - I'll talk later.

[laughs] So I went to this place right after my 40th birthday, and I am 44.

These lyrics started meaning something to me early on.

I can remember in middle school, getting into hip hop.

The metal frames are this beautiful shiny object that represents the music.

But if you really delve into it it's not about a chalice or a club or whatever.

A lot of it is about motivating yourself, being yourself not letting other people tell you who you are.

- [Titus] I think it's, it's very important when you talk about, when you use the word friends.

And I talk to people very clearly when they say, well you know I've got black friends and I and I say, well, wait a minute.

When was the, have you ever invited them to your house for dinner?

Did they come to your daughter's wedding?

Do, did you go to their house for dinner?

And most people will say, no.

I say, well then that's actually a workmate that you have a relationship with, that's not a friend.

And Dave and I have developed that sort of relationship.

So for us to go through the South together without incidents, to me it says maybe, maybe there is hope, or maybe the hope is that two people can get together and are willing to do something like that.

And maybe that's where the hope comes from, is from the action.

- [Heather] Next time on My Home, the North Carolina coast encompasses beauty history and fun.

- Don't move again until the music starts to play.

- [Heather] Join us as we explore some of our most treasured people, places, and coastal traditions - [Man 3] It was just this great mixture of old school and new school.

- [Heather] The coast is calling and it's all on My Home.

[upbeat music] [calm music] ♪ ♪