Category Archives: kansas

Gypsum Hills of Kansas

I spent a couple of days on the road last week with my friends over at Gizmo. They were documenting the Gypsum Hills Scenic Byway and I tagged along to grab some fresh stock photography. I hadn’t been on the backroads in this part of south-central Kansas for a few years so it was fun to reacquaint myself with one of the more unusual scenic regions of the state. I found some of my old favorite spots nearly unchanged and others — like my favorite little reflecting pool — to be entirely missing. The formation above was a new surprise. I’d been down this particular road before but evidently not quite this far because I don’t recall ever seeing that balanced rock before. As much as I’ve traveled this state, it is surprising to continue to run across these little treats. You’d think I’d have found them all by now but that’s the beauty of Kansas. The longer you look, the more you see, and exploration is nearly always rewarded.

On other fronts, this seems to be the season for software issues. As I mentioned previously, it appears that my recent WordPress update has disabled the comments on this site. I’ll continue to try and rectify that situation but I’m also investigating new platforms for some new features that I hope to add to my website yet this year.

I’ve also been working toward upgrading all of my Adobe software to CS6. I’m already running Lightroom 4 and have been using the beta version of CS6 for weeks but as of the end of May, the beta version was discontinued since the final version had been released. My transition was slowed somewhat this time due to a special offer I took advantage of where I was able to upgrade to CS5.5 in early May and a free update to CS6 would be provided by the end of May for me to download. Given the amount of Adobe software that I use, this added up to a substantial discount so I purchased my CS5.5 upgrades and waited for my download link for 6 to arrive. By May 30, I still hadn’t received it. I contacted Adobe and they manually added me back into the system and I finally received my link last thursday. On Saturday, I worked through the update process and it went very smoothly (thankfully). Until Mountain Lion is released, that should be the last of my upgrades for awhile. Good news, since I now need to get up to speed on all of the new features of the entire Adobe Creative Suite. At least I have a head start on Photoshop, having used the beta. All-in-all, it feels good being caught up again and feeling like I can get back to work.

Balloonfest

A shot from last weekend’s Balloonfest in Anthony, Kansas. Lightroom 4’s new “shadow” slider really brought out the detail in the dark portions of the image. I pushed it a little further than I normally would because I liked the way it affected the faces. They almost look like characters out of a Thomas Hart Benton painting to me.

Worm’s for sale

I’ve been continuing my photo shoots to document various aspects of rural life in Kansas and spotted this sign in a yard in Peabody on Saturday. I don’t really know why, but it just made me smile. More from last week’s shoot to come…

Abandoned places

Call me weird, but there are few things I enjoy more than rooting around in abandoned buildings. The layers of history and questions that arise from strange additions and alterations — it’s fascinating. Earlier this week I got a quick peek at the building above. But this isn’t just any old, decaying building. It’s believed that this is the very second-floor room (it was originally one big open room with no dividing walls) where forty elected delegates from the Kansas Territory gathered to write the Free State Constitution in October of 1855. In fact, it may be the first permanent building constructed in Topeka, Kansas.

This was a quick scouting trip and I hope to return soon to further document the building in this condition — basically abandoned since the 1940s — and throughout its proposed restoration. More to come…

Wind power, part 2

A couple weeks ago, I was out in western Kansas shooting wind farms for a State project promoting economic development and employment opportunities in rural areas. I got my start shooting out in this part of the world. Throughout high school and college I had jobs that had me prowling the backroads of this under-appreciated state and I came to know it in detail. I’ve roamed all 105 counties and it’s a rare dirt road that I haven’t been down at least once.

Over the past few years, my attention has largely been elsewhere. My photography began to take me farther afield and international travel has been a bigger priority. I never stopped shooting around my home state, but it has taken a bit of a back seat for a while. This year I decided to refocus on Kansas a bit and to freshen up those stock files. That decision led partly to my taking this ongoing assignment of documenting rural areas for the State. It has several aspects, but the common element is that it’s getting me back into the countryside and I’m having a blast rediscovering this place that I’ve known so well, but — in some ways — has changed so much over the past few years.

It was appropriate that this first segment would focus on wind farms, as they may represent the biggest visual change to the Kansas landscape in decades. Even crossing the state on I-70, you can’t help but be awed by a large and growing group of these behemoths in the Smoky Hills near Ellsworth. I shot one of the state’s first wind farms near Montezuma for Kansas! magazine years ago and in the time since, they’ve been sprouting up everywhere. On that first shoot, I only visited a finished wind farm but on this assignment, I would also visit factories, assembly areas and holding yards where the giant components are stored until needed.

What I saw on this assignment is that wind power is changing the Kansas landscape in more ways that you see by driving down the interstate. This is a new, booming industry. It’s not uncommon now to see turbine blades being shipped by rail or passing you on a flatbed trailer as you drive down the highway. In a lot of ways, Kansas hasn’t changed much since I was exploring it 10 and 20 years ago but it has not been standing still. Every time an assignment takes me out into the field, I’m discovering something new about this place.

And I couldn’t resist a quick self portrait while shooting from atop the crane that’s used to load components on rail cars — complete with all my required safety gear:

Flint Hills Discovery Center

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:

Wind power

It seems like so much that I shoot lately can’t be posted to this blog right away because I need to wait until the images have appeared in the magazines that assigned me. I have lots of fun stuff to show — it will just have to wait. Some should be opening up soon, however, so hold tight.

Last week was a fun assignment that wasn’t for a publication so I can talk a little about it. I spent three days shooting wind farms, turbine plants and holding yards for the Kansas Department of Commerce. These are the kinds of assignments that make me love my job. Being a photographer opens up worlds that you’d never know about otherwise. Seeing how these giant windmills are built, transported and erected was fascinating. The sheer size is hard to comprehend — even when seeing the finished turbine in a field. It’s when you walk around the various parts and components as they wait to be assembled that you realize just how massive they really are.

The shot above was taken at a new wind farm being built near Spearville, Kansas. The sky was deep enough blue that I thought I might be able to get a little blur on the blades by using my ND filter. At faster shutter speeds, the blades are crisp and you can’t tell whether they are turning or not. A little blur seemed important for showing the turbines in action and in speaking to the energy that they create. In the end, I stacked both my ND filter and my polarizer on my 17-35 in order to cut out enough light to lower the shutter speed down to 0.4 seconds. Just enough to do the trick.

I’ll have more from this shoot in the coming days.

Roaming the rooftops

If there’s one thing I love, it’s getting access to a new vantage point and finding a new angle on a familiar photo subject. Having lived in Topeka, Kansas, for a much of my life, there are a lot of familiar subjects around but not that many new angles. So when my friend Doug Stremel mentioned that he and fellow Gizmo guy, Jeff Carson, were heading up to the top of the old Jayhawk Tower Hotel building the other night, I made sure I got myself invited along.

I grew up seeing those neon Jayhawks glowing over downtown Topeka. Next to the Capitol building itself, the twin birds might be most recognizable elements of the Topeka skyline. I’ve been in the building many times — way back when it was a hotel and more recently after its conversion to offices — but I’d never been on the roof before.

All-in-all, it was a great night. It’s always fun to hang around with Doug and Jeff but this was a particularly special evening. Thanks to them for letting me tag along and I hope to shoot with you both again soon. Or just drink beer. I’m pretty flexible. Thanks, too, to the folks at the Jayhawk Tower for letting us on their roof.

Here are a few behind-the-scenes shots — some are mine, others are courtesy of Jeff and Doug, the Gizmo guys:

Year in Review: 2011

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: