Last spring, Texas Highways asked me to photograph several areas of the state for their March 2019 Wildflower issue.
I was already familiar with one area, the Prairies and Lakes region, as it runs from the Red River south through Dallas where I live south to central Texas. The Blackland Prairie, is in the heart of this region and I photograph there quite frequently. I got some lovely Blackland Prairie images of coneflowers and wild roses at the Texas Nature Conservancy’s Clymer Meadow Preserve, and Texas Highways used some of those images for full and two-page spreads in the issue.
They also asked me to photograph the “Piney Woods” of east and southeast Texas. This region includes the wondrous Big Thicket area north of Beaumont, which is one of America’s great biodiversity areas (at least what is left of it). This was my first time to photograph in the Big Thicket, but I was smitten. Wow, what a place. There are not many places where you can find fern-filled long-leaf pine forests filled carnivorous pitcher plants, orchids, wildflowers and even cactus. It is a fascinating ecological overlap zone, and someday I will spend some real time there.
Check out more of the issue and a brief interview of me here, along with several other excellent Texas photographers, including my friend Larry Ditto.
