Tallgrass Prairie & National Geographic Magazine

Tallgrass Prairie & National Geographic Magazine
By Verlyn Klinkenborg

Photographs by Jim Richardson

In the Flint Hills of Kansas, the nation's last great expanse of tallgrass prairie anchors a world renewed by fire.

Americans have always lived in a land of possibility—a place where the grass is "hopeful green stuff," as the poet Walt Whitman put it. Our habit is to wonder what we can make of a place, to gaze at the future instead of the present. As a result, nature often lies hidden beneath our expectations. That's why the Flint Hills of Kansas—the last great swath of tallgrass prairie in the nation—can be so hard to grasp. The Flint Hills are no longer hard to get to, no longer a matter of ox train and overland trail from somewhere east of the Missouri River. They're transected by roads of every description now. But when you get to the hills, when you rise onto the low shield of flint and limestone that defines them and walk up onto the highest brow and stand into the wind that's trying to pry your ears apart, what do you see? .


National Geographic Article on website.

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America's Lost Landscape: The Tallgrass Prairie

The film America's Lost Landscape: The Tallgrass Prairie will be aired on
many local PBS stations. KTWU in Topeka will air the program on Sunday
April 1. KPTS in Wichita will air the program on April 2 at 1:00 a.m. and
4:00 a.m. and on May 20 at 8:00 p.m. Check with your local public
television station for dates and times in your area.



Press Release---------------

Award-winning film coming to PBS on Sunday, April 1 at 9:00pm CDT America's
Lost Landscape: The Tallgrass Prairie explores America's changing landscape

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa -- The ecology, cultural shift and agricultural revolution
that transformed America's prairies are as complex and intertwined as the
tallgrass prairie ecosystem itself. On April 1, PBS will nationally air the
rich and complex story of one of the most astonishing alterations of nature
in human history with a 9 p.m. CDT broadcast of America's Lost Landscape:
The Tallgrass Prairie.

America's Lost Landscape is a production of New Light Media and was produced
in association with the Tallgrass Prairie Center at the University of
Northern Iowa.

Daryl Smith, University of Northern Iowa biology professor and director of
the UNI Tallgrass Prairie Center, was executive producer of this
award-winning feature-length documentary that traces the prairie's
transformation from natural landscape to farmland. Critically acclaimed
actress Annabeth Gish narrated the film. UNI alumnus and owner of Splice
Here, a full-service post-production company in Minneapolis, Clayton Condit
edited the film.

"Before I became involved in this project, I could only find films that told
part of the tallgrass prairie story," Smith said. "I believe the natural
history, ecology, civic history, cultural perspectives, agricultural use and
prairie preservation, restoration and reconstruction for the future are all
interrelated. As we worked on the film, I became even more convinced that
everyone should know about this vanishing -- or lost -- landscape."

While making the film-festival circuit for America's Lost Landscape: The
Tallgrass Prairie, the film's writer, director and co-producer David
O'Shields of New Light Media found most people, regardless of background or
geographical location, are intrigued by the prairie narrative.

"The remaining remnants of tallgrass prairie are a national treasure, and
are just as important as the tropical rain forests in South America or the
redwoods in California," O'Shields said. "The prairie has a uniqueness and a
stature that's worthy of understanding and appreciation. The reality is that
very few Americans know what a prairie is. They confuse topography of the
plains with the grasses and wildflowers that comprise the tallgrass prairie
ecosystem. I hope viewers will come to understand that the prairie ecosystem
can be a model

an approach to building and maintaining a sustainable civilization -- that
may lead of us out of the environmental mess we find ourselves in today.
Prairie can be a great teacher. All we have to do is listen and act
intelligently."

The film's photography and narrative give viewers a glimpse of what was,
what is and what can be the tallgrass prairie. Smith hopes after the
broadcast, viewers will consider how the prairie fits into our future.

"I want people to become aware of this ecosystem and consider the prairie in
relation to their cultural and biological heritage and be aware of how
little remains," he said. "I take pride in raising the level of prairie
consciousness so more people are interested in protecting and restoring the
prairie. Getting more people involved and making prairie conservation and
restoration a higher priority for our society bode well for the future."

Clayton Condit of Splice Here, the film's editor and a native of the
Midwest, found his involvement in the project to be a consciousness-raising
experience.

"To lose the tallgrass prairie is a transformation that happened in an
unbelievable short amount of time and that only emphasizes the impact humans
have on this planet," he said. With global warming and other environmental
issues it as important as ever for people to understand our history and the
scale of the impact we can have - both positive and negative."

Condit enjoyed the challenge of crafting a documentary narrative and the
collaborative approach taken by David O'Shields.

"David is a great director and producer -- very organized. He has a clear
idea of what he wants yet trusted me and everyone at Splice Here to do what
they do best," Condit said. He would give me very thorough notes and
suggestions and then gave me space and time to experiment and help flesh out
his ideas and take some of them even further. The process of editing a
documentary is very much an evolution and discovery process. What sound
bites work together? How can we shuffle the story and images to better tell
the story, etc? David and I worked very well together and came up with a
great piece that we will both be proud of as a major success in our
careers."

Annabeth Gish, who lived in Iowa between the ages of 2 and 18, said she is
proud to be a part of this film -- a meditation on the prairie and an
opportunity to educate and advocate for the land on which she spent her
formative years.

"I remember my father and me taking our dog for long walks. Sometimes we'd
go along farm fields, but we also would explore the area's prairies like
UNI's restored prairie. But even then I'm not sure I understood the
significance of the prairie until I worked on this film," Gish said. "The
film gives a transcendent and lyrical voice to the prairie, and I hope
anyone who sees it falls in love with the land."

America's Lost Landscape: The Tallgrass Prairie premiered at a special
showing at UNI in April 2004 and made its Des Moines debut that December. In
March 2005 the film aired on Iowa Public Television during its "Festival
2005" fundraising special. Among numerous screenings and awards, the film
received the International Documentary Association's Pare Lorentz Award in
Los Angeles in 2005 and the CINE Golden Eagle Award in Washington, D.C., in
July 2006.

For more information about the film, and to view the trailer and PBS promo,
visit www.lostlandscapefilm.com..

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Kansas-Based Photographer Captures Flint Hills!

Kansas-Based Photographer Captures Flint Hills
For April Issue of National Geographic Magazine

Shows of the Photographs Are Scheduled at Lindsborg’s Small World Gallery
Kansas Capitol Rotunda and In a Traveling Exhibit through 2008

The gentle beauty of Kansas’ Flint Hills has beckoned Lindsborg’s Jim Richardson since he was in his first job as a news photographer at The Topeka Capital-Journal.

“I would photograph the Flint Hills but it always was frustrating,” Richardson said. “I never was able to really capture them, to show what I felt when I was there.”

Thirty years later, Richardson’s frustrations about photographing the Flint Hills may be subsiding. National Geographic Magazine is set to publish a 22-page story about this distinctive Kansas landscape by Richardson and respected essayist Verlyn Klinkenborg in its April 2007 issue.

Note that the photograph exhibit will be traveling around the state. Stops include Olathe on April 2; Council Grove on April 9; McPherson on April 16, and Augusta on April 29. Other scheduled exhibit locations include Manhattan, the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Arkansas City, Hutchinson, Abilene, Hays, Salina and Wichita. The full schedule will be posted at www.travelks.com.



The story will introduce the magazine’s nine million subscribers worldwide to a rare landscape and ecosystem that Richardson believes some people in his home state take for granted.

“It is time that we all learned to stop looking beyond the borders of our state for inspiration, learn to see what has been here all along and cherish what we have. The Flint Hills should never play second fiddle to our nation’s more recognized landmark landscapes.”

National Geographic’s April issue will not reach mailboxes and newsstands until mid March; however, Richardson will host a public “sneak peek” show of 25 Flint Hills photographs in his Lindsborg gallery, Small World, from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday, March 11. The show will continue on display at Small World Gallery for the rest of 2007.

On Monday, March 19, an exhibit of 34 large-scale photographs from Richardson’s National Geographic story will be unveiled in the rotunda of the State Capitol. The exhibit is sponsored by the National Geographic Society, the Kansas Division of Travel and Tourism, Flint Hills Tourism Coalition, Epson and Wolfe’s Camera of Topeka.

Many photographs in the exhibit are nearly three by four feet to show an unusual level of detail. One is a multi-panel photograph eight feet wide that shows a lone Flint Hills tree against the rich night sky, filled by the stars of the Milky Way.

The photographs in this Statehouse exhibit will travel to many Kansas communities this year and next, making one-week stops in more than 30 locations across the state. The first stops are in Olathe on April 2; Council Grove on April 9; McPherson on April 16, and Augusta on April 29. Other scheduled exhibit locations include Manhattan, the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Arkansas City, Hutchinson, Abilene, Hays, Salina and Wichita. The traveling exhibit is being coordinated by the Richard Smalley at the Kansas Department of Travel and Tourism; the full schedule will be posted at www.travelks.com.

Richardson proposed the Flint Hills landscape story to National Geographic editors two years ago as part of the magazine’s ongoing coverage of the nation’s great landscapes.

“It was important that the photographs allow our readers to see the Flint Hills in both its grand geologic scale and also in seasonal detail,” Richardson said.

“I looked at the Flint Hills from airplanes so I could see the lay of the land. I looked at them down on my hands and knees with a micro-lens to see the working of a wildflower that is only three-quarters inch wide. I looked at the hills in the slow, almost imperceptible march of seasons. I also dwelled in glorious moments, such as when massive thunderstorms flash across the stoic hills.

He started work in spring 2006 as ranchers started to burn off the hills to seedling trees at bay and allow fresh grasses to grow. By the time he was done, frost was nipping at the red leaves of the sumac.

“I worked on the Flint Hills story over a year’s time, but it seemed short even at that. When you see the Flint Hills in the distance from I-70, for example, the subtlety of the landscape can be deceiving. When you try to get closer, its essence seems to slip away. It is not an easy landscape.

“In the end, I had to accept the Flint Hills on their own terms. They are like no other subject I have photographed.”

The Flint Hills are generally accepted by geologists to be an area in Kansas that runs from southern Mitchell County in the north to Cowley County on the south. The band of hills is bordered on the west by eastern Saline County and on the west by western Wabaunsee County. The geology of the Flint Hills continues south into Oklahoma, where it is called the Osage Hills.

Within the Flint Hills of Kansas is the largest remaining unbroken area of tallgrass prairie.

Richardson is a veteran of more than 35 stories for National Geographic and its sister publication Traveler, where he is a contributing editor. He also is known for a respected body of black and white photography about rural Kansas life. He has lived in Lindsborg for nine years. More about Richardson’s work can be found at smallworldgallery.net.



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For more information, contact Richardson at 785-227-4442 or smallworldgallery@mac.com or Heather Riley at National Geographic Magazine at 212-610-5518.




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