Peterson Township, Clay County, Iowa, April

Peterson Township, Clay County, Iowa, April

It was early April 1991, cold and windy, and Carol and I were living briefly in Peterson, Iowa, while I photographed, interviewed, and did research for what became Reflecting a Prairie Town: A Year in Peterson, my second book.

On that day I hauled my panorama camera out north of town onto the great flats where I could best see the low clouds galloping out of the northwest like bison before a prairie fire. These weren’t storm clouds—notice they are thin stratus clouds—and it was cold enough that snow was more a possibility than rain. I remember standing and holding the tripod against the tearing wind, watching the clouds race at me, light, then dark, transforming second by second,  The great Norse gods were at play that day, and all we humans could do was hunker down in our tiny houses on the plain.