Plains and Prairie, A Distinction

The two words are used interchangeably and they should not be. The Plains are a thing geography does — flat ground east of the Rockies, west of the Mississippi, roughly. A prairie is a thing the Plains can be: a particular short-grass or tall-grass ecology, increasingly rare, almost entirely gone where it was once tall-grass, and only locally intact where it was once short.

Almost everything we photograph east of the Front Range and call 'prairie' is in fact former prairie, currently grazing land, in the early stages of a long recovery that may or may not happen. The Pawnee National Grassland is an exception, and it is photographed less than it should be.

I have come, late in life, to photograph the Plains more than the mountains. They are harder. They do not give you a focal point. They make you work to see them.