There’s not too much to tie these images together other than that they were all shot on the same day in Wichita, Kansas. Started off the morning with a little wildlife outing, managed to find myself in the awesome Donut Whole and finished things off seeing the flames lit at the Keeper of the Plains. There was much more in between, but it was really kind of a typical day in the life of a travel photographer. Never time to get bored.
Flying W Ranch near Clements, KS, puts on a great show with their Flames in the Flint Hills. Ranchers in this part of Kansas burn their grass in the early Spring to encourage new growth and Josh and Gwen Hoy make an event out of it. Typically a sold-out event, at that. For those of us that live around the Flint Hills, the smell of burning grass is a sure sign of Spring. It’s not uncommon to see fires in the distance from the highway, but to be on foot right in the midst of the burn at twilight… well… that’s something special.
Here are a few of my favorite shots from Flames in the Flint Hills last Saturday night:
As members of the media, we were given a sneak peak of the new Flint Hills Discovery Center in Manhattan, Kansas on Thursday morning. The area’s tallgrass prairies are often taken for granted so this is a welcome addition to the scenic byway, Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve and scenic overlooks that have brought more understanding of this vast natural resource over the past few years. The Flint Hills have long been a favorite region of mine and many other Kansans, and now it’s great to have a place to point people to where they can learn more about what makes them so unique and special.
Above: Techs fine-tuning the ceiling projectors in the lobby of the new Flint Hills Discovery Center.
The opening of the Flint Hills Discovery Center is set for April 14th. While you’re there, be sure to check out the film in triple-wide high definition. The addition of breezes and fog put you right in the hills during the Spring burning scenes:
Travel started earlier than usual for me in 2011 with a short trip to San Diego in January. The warm weather was welcome as we were having one of our snowiest years on record back home:
In early April, I escaped the cold once more for a couple of weeks in Fiji. I was there for a Society of American Travel Writers Freelance Council meeting. It was my last year as Chair of the Freelance Council and Fiji would be the last Council meeting under my term. It was a great meeting and a wonderful destination. One of my favorite memories was an evening on the beach with a bunch of fire dancers. There’s not much that’s more fun to shoot than people spinning burning torches on a beach at sunset. If you haven’t tried it, take my word for it.
It was very warm in Fiji — even without the fire. A jet boat trip up the Sigatoka River was the only time I remember actually feeling chilly:
If those cliffs look familiar, I was told that some of the scenery for Avatar was shot in that area.
I wasn’t back in the states for more than a week before driving to Ohio for a couple of stories. I made sure to schedule in another trip to Hocking Hills to try and get some waterfall shots. The last time I’d tried, it was an unusually dry season and it was like the tap had been turned off. Much better results this year.
Back home in June, I managed to photograph a few Kansas events that had eluded me for years. One was the Symphony in the Flint Hills (which is just as amazing as it sounds — an orchestra playing out in the middle of acres and acres of tallgrass prairie and rolling hills) and the reenactment of the Battle of Black Jack. Here’s a shot of “John Brown” from that day:
A trip to Colorado and over the Continental Divide followed. Here’s a lake that sits nearly on the Divide at Milner’s Pass, elevation 10,759 feet:
Quite a few regional shoots followed which I’ll share later after the stories have run. In September, we were on the road again making a big loop through southeastern Iowa:
and down the Mississippi to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Here’s a shot of the Louisiana State Capitol:
Rounding out the year in November was one more trip over the Pacific, across the equator and the International Dateline to New Zealand. This was SATW’s Annual Convention and I officially ended my term as Chair of the Freelance Council and became the much less encumbered Immediate Past Chair. I truly enjoyed my two years in office and serving on the Society’s Board of Directors but it will also be good to step away for a bit and re-focus on my photography business. The New Zealand Convention was great and I especially loved the four days I spent afterward exploring the Southland from Dunedin down to Stewart Island. Here’s one from the Otago Peninsula near Dunedin:
And I’ll leave you with flowers that were blooming in Queens Park in Invercargill, NZ. It’s not bad to end a year with a second season of Spring:
The coming week is going to be busy and there’s a good chance that I won’t have an opportunity to post anything so I’ll leave you with a fun shot today, just in case you end up having to stare at it all week. This one’s from an evening spent photographing fire dancers on the beach in Fiji. Not really an evening as much as a few minutes. There’s a brief period when the sky is dark enough but not too dark to balance with the fire and the light being cast by the fire. It’s fast and exhilarating — made more so by the bits of flaming material that occasionally gets flung in your direction. These guys and gals were amazing and put on quite a show.
For those of you interested in technical stuff, this was f/5.3 at 1/6th of a second. It was shot at 6:28. The entire shoot lasting from 6:17 until 6:37. 400 shots in 20 minutes (I’m glad I wasn’t having to change film). There are plenty more fun ones from this series which I’ll share in the coming weeks.