Project Images
Gallery Overview
Individual Images
Image 1
American Pastoralism
Image 2
And the Fates Smiled Upon Us
Image 3
Cottonwood Shade
Image 4
Dreaming of Yesteryear
Image 5
Exit the Day
Image 6
Prairie Aflame
Image 7
Awaiting Our Fate
Image 8
Sheyenne Sandhills
Image 9
To Touch the Sky
Project Description
I’m embarking on a new project exploring the tremendous topographic, climatic, and ecologic diversity of the North American prairies. This has sent me back to reexamine some images I made in 2021 while backpacking a section of the North County Trail in North Dakota’s Sheyenne National Grasslands. It was a pretty photographically-productive trip, and I’m having a bit of a struggle curating this collection into the one or two standout images (if they even exist as “standouts”) for inclusion in my larger prairie project. I’d be grateful for your insights as to which images are worthy of further consideration, and which are not.
Self Critique
One way I hope to communicate the diversity of prairie landscapes is through a diversity of compositional styles. This particular collection is pretty much all wide angle (it’s the lens I had at the time). I expect to mix in quite a few more small scenes and abstracts as the project moves forward over the next couple of years.
Creative Direction
There are two emotions driving my work in this project: 1) Profound sadness for the fact that the mast majority of North American prairies (especially in the tallgrass region) have been lost. I hope these images help demonstrate the remarkable landscape that we’ve plowed almost to extinction, and to motivate others to pay more attention to the preservation of what we still have left, and to the restoration of that which is is possible. 2) An epiphanic sense of wonder that the prairies, from Alberta to Texas, represent such a diverse natural environment, one that is all but impossible to appreciate while traveling at highway speed. Maybe one of images in this project will motivate someone to stop, get out, and wander in the waving grass.
Specific Feedback
Which images, if any, best communicate those emotions? If one does, I’d love to know why, but that may be more time than you’d like to spend. Even just noting an image title or two would be great.
Intent of the project
Gallery on your website