A few weeks ago, my local newspaper published an article about me and my square meter photography project. Unfortunately, the article managed (unintentionally, I think) to reduce the project to a dorky guy’s weird little photography obsession. I don’t think anyone who read the piece got any feel for what I think are the more powerful stories and lessons from the endeavor. The article even made me question (briefly) the value of the project because of the way it was framed. I bounced back just fine, but I’ll admit it hurt a little.
Ironically, all my griping about that article precedes a collection of photos from earlier this week that plays right into the depiction of me as a big dork with a camera. It’s been a hectic last several weeks as I’ve struggled to finish up numerous projects in between work trips. On Wednesday afternoon this week, I needed a break in the worst way, so I dropped everything and headed out to our family prairie.
The weather was in the upper 30’s and the previous week’s light snow was melting, leaving scattered patches of white across a golden brown landscape. I was mostly there for therapy reasons, so I didn’t really care what I photographed as long as I photographed something. As I started wandering, I noticed a couple flowering stems of sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula) that had drooped over enough that their tops were stuck in the snow. For some reason, the aesthetics of that little scene appealed to me and I spent most of the next hour and a half finding and photographing various examples of it.
I am SUCH a dork.
But I sure felt better afterward… And I’m not ashamed – here are my favorites from that afternoon therapy session.
The Prairie Ecologist 