National Parks preserve irreplaceable land, resources, and wildlife while celebrating the fundamentals of citizenry and the freedom to experience them. The Badlands of South Dakota are home to ancient grasslands, iconic buffalo, curious landforms, and a host of other natural wonders. After almost two decades of traveling through the western United States and countless visits to public lands, the Badlands holds a special place for being my first. Return visits arouse personal nostalgia as well as a renewed appreciation for its vast, silent, and slowly evolving expanse.
As my relationship with the park has deepened, I’ve come to appreciate its many moods and personality traits. Its interior is a virtual never-ending labyrinth of castle-like landforms, artistically stretching skyward and displaying the fingerprints of nature’s eroding forces. What can be a breathtaking, silent journey of the sun across the sky one day can turn into an ominous and relentless, ear-splitting chorus of thunder the next. And so time passes among these castles.
In all its moods, the placid mornings of late summer have their own flavor. The intensity of summer begins to wane, and the pinch of autumn’s chill begins to invade. That natural change brings about a pre-dawn silence that sounds different from that of peak summer. There is an added layer of calm and pause. Pairing well with that mood, the soft light across the eastern sky casts lightly-brushed directional light across the craggy faces of the Badlands castles. I’ve walked many miles across the park during this fleeting time of day. Some mornings are so quiet you can almost hear the sun rising. That silence and soft light come together as the black of night transitions to the pastels of dawn. Cold blues and purples paint the sky and diffuse onto the landscape. The results are simply calming.
The routines of finding a composition and recording it to technical standards can, at times, distract from the very enjoyment that inspires taking the image to begin with. But on this day, the enjoyment won, and I believe that’s an important element in producing quality landscapes. Succumbing to technical hypnosis can undermine the experience and the results. I’ve seen a correlation for that in my own work and in incidental conversations with others, be they an artist, a writer, or an athlete.
My photographic outings are done with several goals in mind. I want to learn a little more about my subject, about myself, and do it at a pace that allows for a natural flow of reflection and conclusion. When these are met, the quality of work seems to increase naturally along with the personal rewards of the experience.
