Tag Archives: Photography

Upper Plains Gothic…

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I just returned from a two week trip to South Dakota attending a conference, visiting family, friends, and shooting loads of photos. I spent most of one week sorting through my grandfather’s letters, newspaper clippings, photographs, and books. Under lamplight, in a quiet basement office, Grandpa guided my research from beyond yonder. This research led to many discoveries and even more questions.

My mind’s eye is somehow seeing everything torn, creased, faded, scratched, or yellowed. I saw my new photographs in the same way when I got home to Vermont.

Perhaps that’s why I find myself looking backward. The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present. —Kristin Hannah/The Nightengale

A special thanks to everyone who made my trip so quite special.

Jo and Mark, there are far more photographs I want to share. Your dedication to Herrick’s history is inspiring, and the dance hall is gorgeous. When you offer memberships, please let me know.

the prairie and the sea…

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Beginning about 540 million years ago, the first of many shallow inland seas ushered in the Paleozoic and later the Mesozoic eras.

Shallow ocean waters covered a significant part of the interior of North America, including the region we recognize as the Great Plains. —Encyclopedia of the Great Plains

I feel a certain soul-settling when experiencing the wonders of the PRAIRIE and the SEA. I’ve been exploring why I am so drawn to wide-open landscapes.

My ancestors left Europe, landed on the eastern shores of North America, and headed west, eventually settling on the plains of southern South Dakota. I moved in a reversed migratory pattern—leaving the plains and settling in New England after living and working in New Zealand, Australia, Tennessee, and Montana.

I think my inherent nature, choices, circumstances, travel, and understanding all have played roles in why certain landscapes speak to me so profoundly. My native Nebraska friend, artist Elizabeth Bunsen and I refer to this as our interior geography. LINK: elizabeth bunsen’s instagram

I will forever be gnawing on the bone of my genetic inheritance and wondering if my ancestors also needed a lot of space to feel settled within themselves.

Pick a theme and work it to exhaustion…the subject must be something you truly love or truly hate.

—Dorthea Lange, photographer/journalist/my hero