Last month I traveled from Minneapolis to South Dakota for a photo workshop titled the Emotional Landscape. It was as much as a road trip vacation as it was a workshop. I got to see western South Dakota as I had never seen it before.
I arrived in Minneapolis to meet up with the group. We first traveled to Pipestone, Minnesota where Native Americans mine for pipestone to make peace pipes. You could see faces in the rocks as you walked around the quarries. Next stop was Sturgis, South Dakota. The next morning we traveled to Bear Butte which holds a lot of spiritual reverence for Native Americans. That afternoon we traveled to the Black Hills and Spearfish Canyon. Wow – I didn’t know how beautiful those hills are! The next day we explored along the way and ended up at Sylvan Lake Lodge. This was a very cool location! The rock formations in that area are really amazing. It is said that Crazy Horse and Black Elk came to that area to do their vision quests. In the morning we explored around Sylvan Lake and later that day we drove the Needles Highway ~ which is another must see in that area. We stayed in Custer that evening and even managed to find a Starbucks in the middle of nowhere at a small park lodge. That evening we drove the wildlife loop in Custer State Park. We did manage to see some buffalo but they were far off, but we did see lots of antelope and even a few tame burros begging for food. It is funny to see a burro walk up and put their head inside someone’s car.
The next day we headed south to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation where we stopped in Pine Ridge and found a lovely coffee shop/cafe. You know your in small town USA when you go to the gas station and they have horses tied up! We then traveled to the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre – it is very sad thinking of what our government did to those people. We stayed the night on the reservation and I met these people who are working with Jane Goodall’s foundation in setting up community gardens on the reservation. They have a small farmers market currently and they are set to expand to a coffee shop in the near future. Good things are happening on the reservation even though that is not what we hear!
The next day we traveled to the Badlands where it was in the 100s every day. It is so dry in this area, the river is even dried up in some areas. We stayed a couple of nights at a guest ranch and we were all happy to have home cooked meals instead of greasy spoon restaurant food. Every night there were lightening storms that we watched from the deck. We don’t get that type of storm in Idaho because if we did everything would be on fire! We explored the Badlands both on and off the reservation. We got to go to some off the beaten path places and lucky for us we had some young horses come up to us in a beautiful spot making for great pictures. The journey home was long but this was a great trip both in growing as an artist and as an adventure to new places. This workshop was a step out of my comfort zone as I don’t photograph landscapes very often which made me think and photograph differently.
Here is a slideshow of a few of my favorite images from the trip ~ Enjoy!
