When Jim Nedresky came to Lawrence from Chicago in 1994, he felt the power of the Kansas landscape. It was pervasive. Yet try as he might, conveying a sense through his photography of what he felt for the space around him, proved elusive.
Photographer Jim Nedresky
Nedresky didn't fancy himself a landscape photographer. In fact, he rather backed into photography to begin with. As an art student, out of necessity he learned to make photographs in order to document the three-dimensional work he was creating. Later, in Chicago, he made a business out of this sort of photography.
To this day, Nedresky gives workshops in photography and portfolio preperation for visual artists for various institutiions, and as part of the Professional Practices class offered for art students at Kansas University.
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Nedresky found himself venturing off the beaten path in search of the images that would convey Kansas as he felt it. He began to spend time in both the Tall Grass Preserve, managed by Kansas State University, and the Z-Bar Ranch, the site of the proposed Tall Grass national Monument.
Using both 35mm and medium format equipment, and a minimum of it, he began to explore the vistas you have to walk away from your car to see. Kansas is home to some of the last remaining tall grass prairie, an ecosystem that once spanned from Canada to Oklahoma.
Among the stunning views of this quiet, undisturbed land, are aerial photographs, which accentuate the subtle forms from a perspective usually, reserved for red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures. Some of Nedresky's most compelling images are of the controlled burns he's witnessed that once again take place due to an increasing understanding of the role fire plays as a necessary part of this ecosystem.
No one trick pony, Nedresky affinity for quiet images where form is the central element can be seen in the series of images on display at Carmesi at 1012 Massachusetts. These small, black and white photographs of architectural details, were taken in and around Lawrence, yet they appear to exist out of time and place.
Nedresky's tall grass images have found their way into not only private collections, but have been used in a variety of publications as well. Indeed, the bulk of the images in an upcoming book being published under an imprint of Barnes and Nobles' entitled "Last Stand of the Tall Grass Prairie" are Nedresky's, and his photographs also adorn the cover.
The book is a companion to a documentary of the same name that will air nationally on PBS on April 20.
Jim Nedresky's photographs can be viewed by appointment, and he can be reached by e-mail at jnedresky@earthlink.net.
One of Jim Nedresky's photographs of a controlled burn in the Tall Grass Preserve.
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