The Story Behind The Photograph - Wild White Indigo Sunrise

Every photograph contains two stories. The first one being the visual message you the photographer are attempting to show. The other one being the story behind the image, or what it took to capture the photograph. In many ways the second story can often be the more intriguing of the two but because of its nature, it is almost always known only to the photographer.

Great photographs rarely happen because of random chance. Most are captured only through perseverance, planning, and vision.  Capturing something truly unique is as much about how you manage to place yourself at that point of best potential as it is understanding the fundamentals of photography. Sometimes luck does play a roll, yet simply being there requires a choice. Seeing the opportunity requires you look beyond the ordinary. Capturing it requires the ability to command the moment both technically and artistically.

Over the next several posts we will take a closer look at what it took to capture a specific image. Let's begin with one of my favorites; Wild White Indigo Sunrise.

The damp, prairie grass closely hugged the full length of my legs as I walked in the predawn light into this Oklahoma landscape. Even though it was late spring, the morning air was cooled by a whispering, but stiff breeze as it caressed the upper reaches of the blue stems and the myriad other prairie grasses. With each step I felt my soul move closer to heaven and at once I was transported to an ancient time long before white men trekked across the plains to settle new lands. My senses were filled with the sweet prairie aroma, familiar, yet somehow foreign to my civilized nature. I paused for a moment and cast a gaze toward the sky. Nothing but thick clouds stretching beyond the horizon threatened to circumvent an attempt to capture one of those legendary prairie sunrises.

When I reached a shallow high spot that fell away toward a long valley stretching to the horizon I stopped and placed the camera tripod onto the rocky ground, and extended its legs between the grasses to form a secure platform. My large camera backpack by this time felt heavier than I remember it being and I slipped the straps off my shoulders and gently placed it on the ground. There was just enough daylight forming to allow me to see. It wasn't the dramatic pre-sunrise light I hoped for, but a somber gray mood was cast across the prairie and with it most of my hopes of a great morning of shooting.

Around me prairie birds began to stir warming up their songs to announce the arrival of dawn. There were no other sounds but the breeze, the birds, and my labored breathing. The morning breeze rose toward a wind causing the loose material of my long sleeve cotton shirt to flap. I noticed the tops of the grasses were beginning to arch more and more, leaning over, then springing back in time with variances of the wind, and the morning progressed toward what would be sunrise, a hidden sunrise clouded behind that vail of overcast hugging close to the ground.

I locked the camera onto the tripod, installed my long 50 to 500 mm lens, a good one to start with just in case some bison appeared deeper across the valley. I had given up hope of catching the sunrise, but instead hoped to see something of the wildlife I knew roamed, or flew, or scurried across the prairie in this area.

Directly in front of me about 10 yards away the silhouette of a lone Wild White Indigo plant rocked back and forth with the wind and the day grew brighter, still gray, but light enough now to be able to see across the valley. The overcast too changed as more texture appeared across its subsurface area and the winds began to stir the clouds lifting them higher above the valley. I checked the time, the sun would be full up as sunrise was behind me now by a few moments. I again looked toward where I believed the sun was hidden behind the cloud cover, the sky grew a bit brighter and a pale cast of color appeared between a thinned layer of overcast.

Pointing my camera toward this pale color, I zoomed and focused, but it just did not look right, yet as I was looking through the view finder, the lone wild white indigo plant suddenly darted across my field of view. It was bouncing and rocking back and forth with the wind, and I tried to focus on it as best as I could. At the same time, that thin band of color, suddenly grew brighter as the clouds parted just enough to allow the sun to almost burn through. Across the field of view, a bulls eye apparition of gold, yellow, and orange mixed with the thinner blue-gray clouds and then without much warning, the hidden sun almost burned a hole in the clouds and created a brilliant spot across the dark overcast. The Indigo plant continued to sway in the wind and I knew this moment would not last long. I focused on the indigo plant to take a shot but the wind pushed it over...I waited...waited...waited...the brilliant color began to fade, then the wind calmed for a brief moment and the indigo plant lifted upright into my field of view. I snapped the shot. Not more than a few seconds later, the cloud cover once again engulfed the sun and it was gone.

Moments such as this one are rare encounters along the journey of a photographer. A degree of luck played out during this photo shoot, but had I not already scouted the area, rose well before sunrise, driven for an hour, then hiked in the darkness to be there, this encounter would never have happened. I love photographing Oklahoma's Tallgrass Prairie as it provides an array of opportunities found in no other location. It is truly a land of color, a world of adventure, an enchanted place where what once was...still is.