Photograph by Bob Schlomann.
I'm a photographer based in North Dakota, in the United States, close to the geographical center of North America. If you'll excuse my stating the obvious, most people don't live here. Moreover, It seems that many folks who don't live here hold assumptions about this place, backed up by just enough fact to make their assumptions feel true and accurate. The premise of the site is that this is a more interesting place, visually as well as in other ways, than is usually assumed.
The site's name was derived from the fact that I spend time photographing in the watersheds of two rivers: the Red River of the North that borders Minnesota and North Dakota, and a tributary stream, the Buffalo River, in Minnesota.
At the end of the last glacial epoch, a large lake, Lake Agassiz, formed on this land from collected glacial melt water. The action of the water in the lake and the winds and wind-deposited soil that remained after the lake was gone, left a broad, flat landscape of grassland and rich soil.
No mountains. No oceans. It's considered flyover country to many who live elsewhere. Yet I've learned that there's more subtlety and beauty here than many think. It doesn't hit you over the head; it gets under your skin. If you can leave assumptions aside, you can find oceans of grassland and crop land, or "mountainous" cloud structures juxtaposed against the vast expanse of open land. It's just as striking as anywhere else, only it's different.
Hope the images convey some of that for you.
Thanks for visiting.
