What were the challenges of creating the first edition of your Field Guide to Wildflowers of Nebraska and the Great Plains? The second edition?
Time. The field photography really should have been a 10-year project. And there were other complications. The first edition was published in 1990, and most of the field work, the photography, was done in the three years prior to that, a period of drought on the central Great Plains. One of the challenges was finding fresh flowers to photograph. Delicate flowers that opened in morning were ragged and torn by the end of the day. And there were probably some plants that did not bloom at all those years, just hunkered down and waited for years with more moisture. The other challenge was being everywhere at the same time. Nebraska is a big state with diverse plant communities, from the deciduous forest along the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountain type ponderosa forests in the northwest. And between those two forest types are several major grassland types, each with unique plant communities.
Another challenge of producing the field guide was the words. I am not a college-certified botanist, although early in my career I worked with a German horticulturist and one of our primary missions was selecting, propagating, and planting wildflowers on state parks and wildlife management areas. In one regard, not being a training botanist was probably a blessing. I approached the text as would a layperson using it. Technical terminology was avoided as much as possible, and the species accounts were presented in a formula format so that not only was the same type of information presented for each species, it was presented in the same format. For sources I used every reference available, combined with information from the best botanists in the state and my own observations and field notes. In almost every case when a plant was photographed, I also pressed a specimen.
The principal challenge of the second edition was updating the nomenclature—the changes in scientific names and even the moving of species from one genus or family to another. And the text was updated, clarifying or adding information to the first edition text. Most of the other improvements made between the first edition and second edition were the work of the University of Iowa Press—skilled editing, improved maps and graphics, and a more eye-pleasing design. Frankly, the first edition was done by people accustomed to producing a monthly magazine. The second edition was done by people who produce books. The difference is evident, often in seemingly small, but important, details such as selection of the typeface.
How long have you been photographing plants? What are the particular challenges of being a botanical photographer?
I started photographing wildflowers in the late 1960s while still in college. I had a friend in the Navy, and he could buy Pentax cameras and lenses cheaply at the PX in Japan. When I started working for NEBRASKAland magazine in 1970, I purchased my first macro-lens, and wildflowers became a frequent subject for my photographs. Only when shooting photographs for the first edition of the field guide did wildflower photography dominate what I did in the field.
The wildflower photography I did for the field guide was different from what I would have done if my principal objective was producing a beautiful photograph. I did not do the super-tight, often shallow depth of field photographs that can produce spectacular images of little use for identifying plants in the field. Nor did I do the type of photographs of wildflowers often seen in earlier field guides, particularly those done by someone who was more a botanist than a photographer and made photographs more for documentation than visual pleasure. The photographs for the field guide were somewhere in between—close enough to feature a flower’s beauty, but at the same time showing identifying structures and when possible parts of the plant other than just the flower, particularly the foliage, useful in identifying a plant. Still, a pleasing composition in complementary light was always an objective.
The challenges of wildflower photography are not as great as photographing wildlife. After all, a plant cannot jump up and run away. The most attractive photographs of plants are made in the soft light of early morning and late day. Some wildflowers, though, only open in midday. For those a photographer hopes for bright-overcast light that is soft and muted. The same light is best for white flowers. All of these elements of producing a good wildflower photograph can be, mostly, controlled by the photographer by being in the right place at the right time. Even in the right place at the wrong time, the used of fill flash, a reflector, or a diffuser screen can sometimes make the difference between a good photograph and a poor one.
Wind seems to be ever-present on the Great Plains and is probably the wildflower photographer’s worst enemy. Some days the wind is light for the first hour or so in the morning, the perfect situation. Plants being jostled by the wind force a photographer to do one of two things: increase the ISO, which also increases the graininess of the photograph, or increase the shutter speed to stop the plant movement, resulting in more shallow depth of field. In some cases I put up a wind barrier of three-feet-high burlap attached to steel rods that were pushed into the ground.
Why have plants kept your photographic attention for so long? What other subjects do you focus on?
I’m sure my mother would appreciate me saying my interest in plants came from having a house full of flowers, including African violets under grow-lights in the living room and flowers in the yard, and I suppose that did contribute. As a boy I had my own “plant garden,” a card table covered with “my plants.” Only cacti and succulents were allowed. But what has probably sustained my interest in plants is that they are so photogenic and I make my living being a photographer. How could I not photograph them? When I am shooting a photo essay on a particular wildlife area or region, wildflowers are regular fodder for the spread. My principal photographic interest, though, has always been birds, water birds in particular, especially shorebirds.
What advice would you give to beginning nature photographers?
There used to be a saying among professional photographers that “film is cheap,” meaning it was false economy to lose an opportunity for a good photograph because you were too chintzy to spend some film bracketing for exposure and experimenting with different angles, distances, and lenses. Today, in the digital age, photographers are saying “pixels are free.” Buy enough memory cards so you have the luxury of burning exposures. If you throw away 80 percent of what you shoot, you are probably above average at culling. A second piece of advice is know where and when to go. Keep notes. If you are a week early or late for a particular wildflower, write it down and odds are better you will get your photograph the next year. Go often. Be in the field as much as you can. Drag yourself out of bed at 4:30 a.m. in the summer so you are perched near a wildflower when the light is best, and if you are lucky there is no wind, and if even luckier a heavy dew. And one final thing, photographs of snakes, lizards, insects and other small creatures are most authentic and personal when photographed at eye level. The same applies to wildflowers. Don’t stand over them and shoot, get down among them, and if that requires being on your belly for a low-growing flower, do it. Lightweight, waterproof pants are a joy.
Nebraska is a crossroads where eleven major floral associations—from the shortgrass prairie and sandhills prairie in the western half to the mixed-grass and tallgrass prairies in the east—meet and merge. What’s your favorite habitat?
No need to pause and think on this one—Nebraska’s Sandhills region in the central and north-central part of the state. Most of the natural landscapes and plant communities in Nebraska and the Great Plains have been destroyed since settlement. The Sandhills, encompassing about 19,000 square miles, is the largest tract of native grassland in the country because it is used principally for ranching. Properly done, grazing cattle simulates the action of native grazers such as bison and has allowed most of the native species to endure. There are numerous expansive public areas where wildflowers are abundant. If a person savors solitude and is not intimidated by endless horizons and the absence of convenience stores, it is a magical place. Be prepared to battle the wind, though. There is an old saying on the Great Plains, that the wind blows every day and the only thing to slow it down is a barbed wire fence in North Dakota that is down most of the time.
What are your favorite natural areas in Nebraska and the Midwest? What areas do you return to constantly, and what’s your favorite newly visited area?
In Nebraska, the Valentine and Crescent Lake national wildlife refuges are top choices for native grasslands filled with wildflowers and wildlife. Outside of the Sandhills, my next choice for a grassland worth visiting would be the Oglala National Grasslands in the northwest corner of Nebraska. Good examples of mixed-grass and shortgrass prairie can be found only as remnants. Some of the best places to look are on state wildlife management areas. Although Nebraska is not traditionally thought of as a woodland state, Indian Cave State Park in the extreme southeastern corner of the state is a wonderful parcel of eastern deciduous forest. In the far northwest, public land with Rocky Mountain type ponderosa forests is abundant on state and U.S. Forest Service land. In Nebraska’s Panhandle, Agate Fossil Beds National Monument and Scotts Bluff National Monument are good locations for wildflowers.
Each state in the Great Plains has a handful of “best places” to find a good sampling of native flora. Being a native Nebraskan, I confess to living a rock-deprived life, and so when outside of Nebraska I am often drawn to rocky places. They do not have to be spectacular rocky places; in fact, I tend to avoid anything spectacular, where you can accidently hit your shutter button while falling down and make a good photo. A lichen-covered glacial boulder here and there in a grassland will do or soft rock in barren country most people quickly drive through to get from here to there. And I prefer places where I can turn 360 degrees and not see a single thing done by man. I prefer grasslands over woodlands.
A few places I really like are the Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge in the prairie-pothole country of northwestern North Dakota; the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota, particularly the North Unit; Buffalo Gap National Grasslands and Badlands National Park in southwestern South Dakota; Konza Prairie and the Tall Grass National Preserve in northeastern Kansas; the Cimarron National Grasslands in southwestern Kansas and nearby Comanche National Grasslands in southeastern Colorado; the Black Kettle National Grassland in western Oklahoma; and the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge in south-central Oklahoma.
You’ve been a writer, editor, and photographer for NEBRASKAland magazine and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission for more than forty years. What changes have you seen in the ways that Nebraskans view the natural world around them? What’s better, what’s worse when it comes to conservation in Nebraska?
Kids are spending less time outdoors, and when they are outdoors it is usually at a managed and manicured area such as a state park, and activities are usually organized by adults. Nature is packaged. That is too bad because kids should be left to their own devices now and then, make their own fun, discover new things in their own way, get dirty and accustomed to things like ticks on your pant legs or nettle itches on your elbows. That trend bodes ill for the future, as we are raising generations of adults with no real experience with nature. Those adults will vote and govern and decide the future of wildlife, native flora, and natural communities.
The bright side of what has happened over the last 40 years is that more people are aware of what we have lost and more interested in preserving what little remains of once vast ecosystems like the tallgrass prairie. More so than in the past, that concern has translated into legal protection for natural areas and support of organizations like The Nature Conservancy. The short-term view is seldom wise, more apt to be expedient or profitable. Protecting what is left of what once was so abundant for future generations is priceless.
