THE Traveler: Ron Britz of Blaine.
Why South Dakota deserves our attention
February 22, 2019 at 1:30PM
The scene: A sea of sunflowers — heads pointed at the sun — stretches to the sky along Hwy. 212, a few miles west of the Missouri River near Forest City, S.D., on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. The field is more than a mile long.
Destination: "Many Americans think South Dakota is flyover land, or boring prairies to drive across at night. I'd think the same if not for the fact that my wife has her roots in the state, and that has prompted many visits over the years. I find the huge fields, abandoned 18th- and 19th-century homesteads and small towns to be fascinating. I'd encourage travelers to get off the I-90 freeway and explore the two-lane highways that traverse beautiful landscapes. There's more to South Dakota than the Black Hills and Wall Drug!" Britz wrote in an e-mail.
Getting the shot: Britz used his Nikon 5300 DSLR with a Nikkor 18-300mm zoom lens, at 18mm, the widest angle. He envisioned the photo as soon as his car crested a hill and he saw the massive hill. He walked through the ditch to the fence line and crouched a bit so that the frame would be filled mostly with sunflower plants. He included the sky "to convey the actual sense of infinity," he wrote in his e-mail
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