Earth, Fire, and Water, Z-Bar Ranch, Chase County, Kansas

Larry Schwarm earned his MFA. in photography from the University of Kansas and is now a professor at Emporia State University. The location allows him to access grasslands and pastures to record annual prairie burnings. This cycle of spring burning is essential to maintaining the grassland ecosystem and stimulates early plant growth for grazing. Schwarm explores the formal and spiritual potential of this process through his simple compositions that maximize intensity of color and contrast. This photograph was made at the Z Bar Ranch, now part of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve.