Early Mornings

I’ve been thinking about early morning hikes on the Tall Grass Prairie so I thought I’d share another image from this past fall’s outing with friends and UCM students.

Pond reflections at the Tall Grass Prairie Preserve near Strong City, Kansas. © 2011 Terry Ownby.

Prairies, Weird Rocks, Atomic Canons, and the Oz Museum: Another Kansas Photo Road Trip

So over the past few years, my colleagues and I have taken groups of students on short two or three-day photo road trips over into Kansas and the Flint Hills region. Usually we do this over Spring Break and it’s cold, windy, and generally unpleasant. This time though, we decided on an autumn trip, which gave us much better weather and the opportunity to shoot star trails at a very unique location.

After an uneventful drive to Emporia on Friday evening, we gathered the whole gang for diner at Montana Mike’s Steakhouse. Our next morning would take us to the Tall Grass National Prairie Preserve before sunrise…a challenge for most college students…but ours were up to the task! We were rewarded with great light and interesting cloud formations. Once the sunrise light had faded to mundane morning light, we split into three parties and hiked separate trails until our rendezvous around noon back at the farmhouse. Lunch was enjoyed at yet another gas station (this seems to be a recurring theme in our trips!) that also doubled as the Flint Hills Restaurant in Strong City.

By late afternoon on Saturday, we arrived in central Kansas and checked into our rooms in Salina. Now the excitement was about to begin! We descended en masse upon a lonely Subway shop with only one employee working and then packed our suppers into our camera bags and headed north to Rock City, near Minneapolis, Kansas. This was Wilson’s and mine second trip to this otherworldly spot of sedimentary rock “concretions”. The stars (and the Milky Way) were stunning. Other heavenly bodies also appeared: shooting stars (or are they falling stars?), man-made satellites (two), high-altitude jets, and finally a nearly full moon.

Sunday morning we all had a leisurely breakfast at IHOP and then we headed east to Junction City to climb the ridge to shoot panoramas of the Atomic Canon and Fort Riley army base. Here the students and faculty parted ways and we (the faculty) sought other adventures at the Oz Museum and abandoned 19^th century one-room structures near Wamego, including the nearby Beecher Bible & Rifle Church! The afternoon was rounded out with a nice find of 19^th century photographs (including a carte-de-visite by famous Wisconsin photographer H. H. Bennett) from an antique shop in Alma. Below are photos from our road trip…enjoy!

Dr. Tom photographing the sunrise at Tall Grass Prairie Preserve. © 2011 Terry Ownby

Sunrise on the prairie. © 2011 Terry Ownby

Star trails at Rock City, Kansas. © 2011 Terry Ownby

Star trails with gift shop at Rock City, Kansas. © 2011 Terry Ownby

Journey into the Land of Oz. © 2011 Terry Ownby

 

Panoramic overlooking Fort Riley with its M65 Atomic "Annie" Canon. © 2011 Terry Ownby

Lightning in the Land of Oz!

Friday morning Wilson and I headed west out of KC in a horrible thunderstorm, but by the time we reached Topeka the skies were beginning to clear. Our road trip destination was near Salina, Kansas. There were multiple photographic venues on our agenda: the Lindsborg Swedish Midsummer Festival, Mushroom Rock State Park, and Rock City (near Minneapolis, KS). When we reached Salina, the temps were well into the high 90s with equivalent humidity levels! We first headed north to Rock City Park, which is privately owned, and were astounded by the size of these “concretion” boulders strewn about the landscape. Shot several daytime images there, then headed into Minneapolis for a fine Mexican lunch.

Rock City Park, © 2011 Terry Ownby

Next, we headed west again and made our way out to Mushroom Rock State Park…humidity levels were even more dire! Disappointment here as there were only 2 1/2 “mushrooms” in the 5-acre park. But never to give up, I noticed an abandoned prairie farmstead up on a lonely hill. With no one around, we made our way up to it and found a treasure drove of photo opportunities waiting. I concentrated my shooting inside an old barn. Great textures!

© 2011 Terry Ownby

© 2011 Terry Ownby

After dinner in Salina, we decided Rock City would be our nighttime destiny for shooting star trails amongst the concretions. We arrived at 8:30 pm, about a half-hour before sunset, in order set up our gear and make composition decisions. There were these incredibly nasty little gnats  that ignored all our bug spray! Miserable. Clouds kept building and about 10pm the lightning started up to our south. We kept watching and shooting and eventually the storm moved in close and to our east. Instead of star trail photographs, we ended up with some great mysterious looking lightening shots with the sedimentary concretions in the foreground. I kept my camera’s WB set for daylight and the blue that appears on the rocks was from my LED flashlight. The eery green cast came from the nearby mercury vapor parking lot lamps. Of course, the colors in the sky were provided by nature, herself! Enjoy!

© 2011 Terry Ownby

© 2011 Terry Ownby

© 2011 Terry Ownby

Return to the Flint Hills

Amazingly, I never tire of photographing the Flint Hills and the Tall Grass Prairie in Kansas. Wilson Hurst and I returned last week, sans students, and set up our base of operations at Emporia. Friday morning we hiked a portion of the prairie that was new to us, the Two Section Pasture, just east of Strong City. Basically it was just a very large pasture with several young beeves, which kept following Wilson! We did encounter one Horny Toad lizard along the trail and that provided some entertainment.

After working up an appetite, we headed down to Cottonwood Falls, where we had massive burgers at the Grand Central Hotel. From there, we did a driving tour heading south through Chase County, wondering back roads until arriving at an interesting ghost of a town called Bazaar. We happened across a unique looking cemetery from the 19^th century, aptly named, Bazaar Cemetery. Something about the name just sounds bizarre! Anyway, that was the beginning of a new joint photo project on oddly named cemeteries and the following day we were fortunate to come across two more for the series: Welcome Cemetery and Pleasant Valley Cemetery! What are the odds?!

Around dinner time, we headed back into Emporia, checked into our room and then headed to one of the few chain restaurants we’ll eat at while on the road: Montana Mike’s Steakhouse. Fast service, good steaks, and reasonable prices, what else does one need! Since the days are getting longer, we decided to go back out to the Tall Grass Prairie to photograph the sunset and to await the night sky for some star trail shooting.

Being out in that sea of green at twilight is incredible and we were rewarded with great light, nighthawks, deer, coyotes, Evening Primroses, stars, and an incredible red full moon. It takes patience to do this type of shooting, something my students struggle with; but we were there in one spot from 7:30pm until almost 10:30pm, before calling it a day.

The next day started with a great breakfast at the Flint Hills Restaurant and then we headed north for the Konza Prairie. En route, we detoured off the highway and found Pillsbury Crossing and spent time photographing the waterfalls at the fording in Deep Creek. While there, we spotted what appeared to be a Cottonmouth snake, sunning itself on a flat stone in the river, not far from where we had been shooting. Then we were off to the Konza. Springtime flowers were abundant and we captured several images along the trail up to the summit of the ridge.

Although we covered a lot of miles in two days, it was incredibly relaxing and great to get away from urban life. Great photography, great food, and great landscapes: the Flint Hills is my favorite for all of these!

© 2010 Terry Ownby, Sunset at Tall Grass Prairie

© 2010 Terry Ownby, Looking North from Tall Grass

© 2010 Terry Ownby, Pillsbury Crossing

© 2010 Terry Ownby, Bazaar, Kansas

© 2010 Terry Ownby, Evening Primrose on the prairie

© 2010 Terry Ownby, Annual Fleabane, Erigeron annuus L. & Blue Hearts, Buchnera americana  L.

Photo-trekking in the Tall Grass Prairie

This past weekend marked our second annual “unofficial” spring break photo trip to the prairies of Flint Hills region in Kansas. By far, one of my all-time favorite places in the U.S., I never get tired of photographing there. Every time I return to these prairies, the scene is never the same and depending on the time of year, it might be shades of earthy browns or lush emerald greens or charred black from fire and dotted with copious amounts of flint and limestone.

Originally, myself and two other photo professors (Tom and Wilson) from the University of Central Missouri started going to the Flint Hills for its unique photographic qualities…and we soon fell in love with this region. Eventually we invited other faculty and alumni. Last year I convinced my colleagues to encourage photo students to tag along…unofficially. We had a good time, so this year I promoted our event more aggressively. All total, there were 17 like-minded folks trekking the plains, including three international non-photo students (one from France and two from South Korea). My travel partner (Robert) on this trip was my former portfolio student and an extraordinary nature photographer in his own right, having backpacked more than 30 years and traveled in 17 countries. Check out Robert’s work by clicking here.

We gathered early Saturday morning just off campus and car pooled west to the Kansas Turnpike, stopping at the McDonald’s oasis just east of Lawrence. This stop off point has become a breakfast ritual over the years and a brief chance for our first socialization outside the university. Next, we caravanned southwest to Emporia and descended on a lone Subway sandwich shop in order to take lunch with us on our first seven mile hike. After arriving at the Tall Grass Prairie National Preserve and getting our orientation briefing from the ranger, off we headed on the Scenic Overlook Trail, taking us well into the backcountry. The park service estimates this to be a 2.5-hour round-trip hike…they didn’t anticipate a bunch of photographers! We spent closer to five hours hiking, photographing, eating lunch in sheltered limestone creek beds, and having encounters with bison. Only one in our party took the wrong trail on the return and ended up three miles south of the historic ranch headquarters, but we eventually found the wayward student and immediately set off on the second leg of our journey…Junction City, home of the Big Red One and the atomic cannon.

Day two of our trek began early with a short drive east to the Konza Prairie Biological Station, just south of K-State. Here we were greeted by numerous deer and at least 50 wild turkeys. What a sight! The morning was not as windy as the previous day, but it was damp and misty. Had to break out the rain pants. Large portions of the Konza had been burned and thus revealed many limestone outcroppings and ribbons of chert (flint). I’ve never seen the prairie look like this before, so I found it quite interesting. As I said at the beginning of this blog, the prairie is always changing and never stays the same…always providing new photographic opportunities.

Several of us rendezvoused at noon and headed into Aggieville for a bite at one of our favorite eateries, the Bluestem Bistro. I’ve eaten there several times now, and never been disappointed in their coffee or fare. This time lunch was a turkey and sundried tomato quiche with their skillet hash browns. Fantastic! On the way out of Aggieville, we spotted an elusive Wisconsin gnome in the park, checking out the mythical 30-foot tall Johnny Kaw statue in the city park. Perfect ending to a great photo safari on the Kansas prairie!

© 2010 Terry Ownby

© 2010 Terry Ownby

© 2010 Terry Ownby

© 2010 Terry Ownby

Flint Hills Roadtrip

A couple of weeks ago during our Spring Break, myself and my two friends (Wilson and Tom, also photo professors at UCM) ventured back to the Flint Hills but this time we also took along with us 9 photography students. The best part for me was the very first day hiking the backcountry trails at the Tall Grass National Prairie Preserve, near Strong City, Kansas. I think this is one of my favorite places in the U.S. to visit. Being out on the prairie where you can see for miles and hear nothing but wind, birds, swaying grass and your own heartbeat is fabulous! I’m looking forward to going back in early summer when the grass is green and a bit taller. Until then, I have my photos to give me solace. The image below is of Spring Hill Ranch, taken on my return from the backcountry.

© 2009 Terry Ownby