When It Was Film, Part VI

Badlands at Sunrise                                    Date Unknown, July 2006

A few stars still shone clearly in the indigo sky as we silently pulled up tent stakes during morning's nautical twilight.  We had slept in the Cretaceous soils of the Sage Creek campsite, and it seemed we were the first awake in the park.  If we pulled off our stealthy retreat, we would have the wildlife to ourselves.

When I was just seven years old (1977), my family had planned a morning of Badlands sunrise photography.  It was my first traveling summer vacation, and I remembered the day vividly. Now, nearly thirty years later, we had formulated a similar plan. A perfect mix of clear and cloud, the morning sky collaborated with natural animal patterns and agreed with my photographic goals in every way.  Bull bison already roared in the distance, thrown fully into the season of the breeding rut.  As we crested the ridge, a landscape of prairie wildlife greeted us.  A fleeing coyote was the first animal to spark optimism.   Soon, the forms of bison were apparent among the pinyon pines and twilight shadows.

The glow of a soon-to-be sunrise painted pastel hues into the sky, across the prairie grasses and onto the earthen spires and rolling hills.  Eager to immerse ourselves into the rutting herds of bison, we marveled at the wild landscapes and headed southeast for the big prairie dog towns.  The bison had been there in the evening, and I was certain they would still be there, partaking in the symbiotic prunings and cyclings of prairie greens that oscillate between bison herds and prairie dog towns.

We arrived in time to see a big old bull rolling in the dust.  His cloud grew and billowed across shortgrass prairie flats.  Behind the big bull, the rising sun shimmered through the dust, casting shadows into the air.  Each bison, silhouetted in the rising sun, became a crisp, surreal double image. All around us, bull bison bellowed and roared.

Through bison and prairie dogs, the prairies live.  When soils are well-nourished, animal browsing stimulates new growth in prairie grasses, and bison droppings create fertile, damp microcosms through which nutrient cycling gains power.   Bison and prairie dogs are gardeners of the prairie, and, in addition to promoting the health of the prairie, the two animal species each impart a portion of the cyclic equation.  Without prairie dogs, bison are less powerful.  Without bison, prairie dogs are less powerful. Together, they generate the life of a pristine and functioning shortgrass prairie.  Those who did not understand the interdependence of ecosystems once sought to tame the prairies.  In search of short term wealth and armed with iron, settlers of the prairie nearly wiped out the bison, the contiguous expanses of prairie dogs, and the prairie itself.  To hear the bison roar among the prairie dogs' squeals, barks and shouts is to hear the return of the wild to this wild and open space.

When we had taken in our fill of the bison spectacle, we continued on in search of other wildlife.  The delicate and fading colors of a passing sunrise accented the harlequin colors of a pronghorn buck and added a sense of mystery and adventure to all of the prairie hills beyond.  We encountered a small herd of bighorn sheep, mostly mature ewes with their young.  Again, we enjoyed the theme of prairie restoration and recovery.  The bighorns had once been eliminated from this landscape, but they had been reintroduced in the 1960's.  Like the bison and prairie dogs, they were thriving again and representing the capacity for people to learn from mistakes, to move forward in healing, and to do the right thing in bringing a powerful thing of beauty back into existence.

All images were made with a Canon EOS A2 Camera and Canon EF 300mm f4 L IS lens.  I do not recall which film I used, but I am fairly certain it was Fujichrome 100, possibly Velvia or Provia, and possibly pushed one stop.