(click on any photo in this post to enlarge it)
This weekend I had the opportunity to spend another afternoon photographing on the Bird Runner Refuge with the gang from the Kansascapes Photo Alliance. The light was less than ideal, but you can always find something to make a photograph of in any light.
Like the last time I was photographing on Bird Runner, I was drawn to shooting tight compositions and macro photographs. Part of this was due to the light, but not all of it. For some reason I’ve really been drawn to the new growth exploding all over the Bird Runner Refuge as spring gets into full swing (though you wouldn’t know it by the temperatures this weekend!). Maybe it’s just a fad and I’ll soon be back to shooting the wide open landscape type photographs I would normally be making while I’m out in the Flint Hills. Or maybe I’m just finally learning to look down.
- Prairie Bouquet
Whatever the reason, I’m interested to see what I continue to make photographs of as I explore the Bird Runner Refuge and how it changes over the coming year. And how it changes me.
- Billowing Up
Looking at my photographs it strikes me how things in the ‘small’ world remind me of things in the ‘big’ world. This flower for example reminded me of thunderheads billowing up over the horizon. Maybe this is because I don’t have much experience photographing the ‘small’ world so I have to relate my subjects to things I’m familiar with in the ‘big’ world.
Earlier in the week I had heard that the wild blue indigo was blooming on the Bird Runner and I immediately formed visions of beautiful landscape photographs with side lit indigos on the hillsides with an amazing sunset in the sky above them. The wild blue indigos were going to be my “main event.” All my landscape type photographs of them failed; I can blame part of this on the light, but I also have to take the blame for not being able to find a landscape type photograph of them that would work in the light I had. I was happy with the close up shots of them that I made though.
I found this clump of flowers near the small lake on the refuge and made several photographs of them. This was probably my personal favorite of the day. I wonder how many times in the past I have walked past scenes like this and not even noticed.
- Stubborn
I’ve always been fascinated by plants growing out of holes in rocks. This is fairly common to see in the Flint Hills but for some reason this little plant really caught my eye. I hope I can find it again to follow its progress growing up out of the hole in the rock. It is amazing how stubborn life is; things will grow in any nook and cranny. Probably a good reason for that. And a good reason for us to be careful about how many “nooks and crannies” we destroy…chances are it was something’s home.
