August 14 // 6:35PM
Alamosa // Colorado
As you walk across this landscape, be careful, the ground is covered with Plains Prickly Pear cactus, a low, ground hugging variety that creates a matted pad on the flat grass covered expanse. These cacti have hypodermic-like spines that will shoot through the sole of your shoe if you’re not careful – I wasn’t.
It can be hard to find your way around them sometimes, but my goal was to get out to one of the lone scrub trees that dot the ancient lakebed at the edge of the dune field. The further I went, the more detail I discovered among the nothingness. The grasses would brush against my boots and I would feel the spines from the cacti scrape the leather. A few feet ahead of me rabbits would scurry to safety. I thought about how safe they must feel among this mine-field of protection.
As I walked, the overcast sky started to open, and the evening sun started peeking through. It was golden and glowing, it felt religious and deliberate. The light fell on the plains, and it was exactly what I was hoping for. The wind whipped, and the light crept across the grassland closer and closer to my camera. When it was right, I grabbed an image.
The walk out was just as precarious as the entrance.
Often when I arrive to shoot a particular landscape, the images I leave with are something totally different than I intended. In this case, I imagined photographing enormous dunes of sand with an incredible sky above. But, I left with something else. Not worse, just different. Being open to these opportunities is important for me. When shooting landscapes, you can’t force an image – because you don’t control the scene, nature does.