Testing the Light, Sky, and Silence

'Tis dusty here, I concede to you. The jaguar has been quiet and straining to hear other Muses, and not certain they are there to hear. Be that as it may, it has not been entirely dormant. It awoke, and I with it, and we decided upon action. The action was to take a road trip, to see what we could see, and make better plans for the future.

There is an upcoming exhibition scheduled for later this year of which I hope to be a part. The theme is the Flint Hills region of Kansas. I have been seeing a lot of imagery and artwork inspired by the Flint Hills, and it was the intersection of art, curiosity and photography that fired my imagination. Until last year, I had never heard of them. Until this year, I had never visited them. So it was that I woke up this morning and said "I will see the Flint Hills today."

I loaded up my cameras and tripod in the car and set forth. The idea was to perform a scouting mission to get some familiarity with the area. I made the conscious decision to not spend all my time taking pictures, but instead absorb some of the geography and climate. Some pictures would be taken, but only as tests and only of something I found particularly interesting. I was also going to be using a new pinhole film camera, a wide angle Holga with which I had no prior experience. That was in addition to my regular Holga film camera and my trusty DSLR.

We will have to wait for the film to be developed and printed, but I did snap a few digital images that show promise (see below). The strange thing was that as I stood on the edge of some of the last remaining tallgrass prairie in the United States, alone with the wind, sun and thoughts, I found myself losing the urge to take picture after picture. The light was soft and pure, and the sky seemed to be open up something inside my head. There was a silence there, broken only the distant purr of sparse traffic, the wind in the grass and the rush of blood through my veins.

It is foregone that I will return. I sensed something there, testing the light, the sky and the silence. I will find it, or it will find me. This I know.