May 29, 2009 - 5:59 PM

Inaugural Post!

Title:  Fire Road Twilight

Location: Chase County, Flint Hills of Kansas

Travel Information

This picture was taken on one of the many gravel back roads in Chase County, Kansas in the heart of an area referred to as the Flint Hills. The Flint Hills is a region roughly 25 to 60 miles wide centered approximately on the eastern third line of the state. Some of the towns to visit are Cottonwood Falls, Council Grove, Matfield Green, Cassoday, Manhattan, and Strong City. Chase County is a little over two hours southwest of Kansas City, or about an hour and a half from Wichita.  Take I-35 to Emporia, head west 17 miles to Strong City, then left on Hwy 177 to Cottonwood Falls, the county seat. This picture was taken near the Flying W Ranch, a working cattle ranch and agritourism site. Directions to the Flying W are on their web site, http://www.flinthillsflyingw.com/ .

Technical Information

This shot was taken with a Canon 5D camera with a 16 - 35mm zoom lens.  A sequence of eight shots was taken from a tripod, ranging from 1 sec to 10 seconds at f8.  These shots were then imported into a Mac Pro computer and combined using a High Dynamic Range photography software program called Photomatix.  The combined HDR file was imported into Photoshop and layered on the original individual exposures of the scene, and certain areas masked out to render the tonality changes I felt best described the feel of this scene. 

Inspiration  

I love getting on back roads, ignoring the map and navigating purely where the spirit takes me.  You never really get lost, you just may end up someplace you didn't anticipate!  You often find some really interesting subject matter, perhaps because your senses are trained on where you are, not where you are supposed to be going.

Driving on deserted back roads at dusk during fire season is an eerie experience. Getting out of the car, you hear the fire crackling across the prairies’ expanse in a gentle processional.  All else is still and quiet, the acrid smoke blurring stars in the indigo twilight. 

The fire occasionally reaches a tall and thick stand of grass, where the fire quickly becomes animate with ferocious intensity. Thrashing wildly, it leans into its consumption, with a hollow, reverberant sound of oxygen being sucked into the throat of incineration. The belly of the blaze swells as long arms whip and twitch upwards of 20 to 30 feet in height.  Mirroring the shape of its beginning, the crescendo of activity falls back into gentle procession.

I’m struck with how the calm seems more pronounced than before the fires’ passing. With my back to the flames now gone by, the amber earth slips into the ink of darkness, the land waving surrender with just a few sinuous wisps of smoke. Two weeks later, that same dark void has become a sea of new spring green as the grasses return.  

Fire Ecology

Fires in the Flint Hills are a common sight in late March and early April.  The fires are intentionally set by ranchers and land managers and are a vital practice of maintaining a healthy tallgrass prairie ecosystem.   Careful attention is given to burning only after a period of rain so that the soil is still moist, but the grasses dry.  This way the grasses burn but the root systems are left intact and undamaged by the fire.  Invasive species are eliminated, nutrients returned to the soil, and the resulting black soil heats up in the sun sooner and thus lengthens the growing season.  The new grasses that spring up from that shallow black soil are uniquely protein rich and provide some of the best spring forage for cattle anywhere in the United States.