A few weekends ago, a friend and I went to the Badlands of South Dakota to do some shooting of the area. I wanted to see some things there other than Mount Rushmore, and I found that the name Badlands is justly named. The first day in the skies were gray, snowy, and it was cold. While trying to shoot Mount Rushmore, the local fuzz decides to pull us over and harass us both for 20 minutes for not being able to see the dealer tag in the window of my car? He had nothing on either of us, and after wasting time and tax payers of South Dakota’s dollars, he let us be on our way. But his stop dulled me on the idea of going into the park, so although we were pulled over at the park entrance, we decided to forego seeing the mountain, and take our dollars elsewhere for the day. From there I attempted the long drive back towards the Badlands Nat. Park. The weather wasn’t much better; in fact, the winds were blowing to about 50-60 mph…insane for trying to shoot anything. I tried to take in the strangeness of the Badlands landscape, but the wind won that battle. I suspect that the park would be a nice kaleidoscope of soft pastel colors on a summer evening with the sun low in the sky and no winds, so one day, I may go back to there, but this time it was not to be. Essentially, the first day was a big bust for us.
Day two, Sunday would pan out much better, as the skies would not be as gray and the sun makes an appearance. This time I pointed the car towards Custer State Park, and the wildlife viewing part of the park that went on for miles from the south to the north. Not a few miles in we found out why it’s called the wildlife viewing road…buffalo! Lots of them and they were everywhere. They were nursing calves to, so they freely roamed the parks roads as they pleased and made themselves easy targets for me as I stretched my amateur status as a wildlife photographer? A beautiful and imposing animal, these buffalo walked right up to the car with no fear. The parks roads led through the best looking part of the state for sure, and yielded vistas of grasslands and trees as well as wild turkey and pronghorn.
At the near end of the park was Sylvain Lake. This lake was so picturesque, with its rock formations jutting out of the water, and blue skies, that I posted two shots from here on the site. From the north end, we made our way into Spearfish Canyon in search of a few waterfalls I had read about. In this canyon, which is where they filmed the final scenes of Dances with Wolves, we found Spearfish Canyon falls…and plenty of snow! It snowed high up in this canyon the whole time, but the snow enhanced the shooting of these falls in some ways by providing a nice touch of white snow on very green moss near the base of the falls. I was able to catch one other fall on the way out, but was unable to get real close to this one due to high water in the creek. We made our way out of the canyon on towards Spearfish, then south back into Rapid City, where the night was finished off with a good dinner at the local pub, and a hockey game between the Rapid City Rush and our Colorado Eagles.
On the whole, it was a mixed bag of a trip, but ended on a good note, so I wasn’t soured on the Badlands area completely. But after seeing the great Peter Lik on his show From the Edge, also struggling all weekend to land a decent shot, I realize that if I come away with a few decent shots, and maybe a couple of great shots, then the trip, any trip, is never a waste to the landscape photographer. Sometimes though, you have to go through a lot of bad conditions to capture even one good shot. The one thing a landscape photographer cannot control is Mother Nature herself? The weather in the spring in that part of the nation turns on a dime dramatically, and the weather report must be taken within hours of when you want to shoot…so planning is not always easy to do? So as far as the Badlands of South Dakota go, not a bad trip after all, and I will be back again to shoot some more.
