In the Dirt

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette:

“Black-eyed Susan Forest” ~ Dave Leiker

IN THE DIRT

When Dave Leiker was a young boy, he and his brothers eagerly explored a stream near the old farm where his family lived for a year.

Like the dirt and mud that surely set into his jeans and his shirts, the love of exploring nature set into his soul.

As an adult, not much has changed. Ditches and creek banks seem to be my husband’s natural habitat. He’s an in-the-dirt photographer – which is why he calls his website “Prairie Dust.”

The other day, headed toward Great Bend, we stopped along K-150 in Marion County so we could take pictures of wildflowers in the ditch.

“What do you like to photograph most?” I asked him.

“Just the spirit of things,” he said. “The life force.”

We didn’t have bug spray with us, but he spread a drop cloth so he could avoid some of the chiggers and he sprawled out on his stomach to take photos of a swaying clump of black-eyed Susans.

Dave explained the process. “Now, I’ll shoot into the light. They’ll be backlit so the light comes through and really illuminates them.”

“I’m always watching the histogram,” he said. “Catching details and highlights in the blossoms and yet keeping texture in the sky – it’s almost impossible to do both.”

“Up close you see all the pinholes from where the bugs have eaten,” he said. “This is so much more interesting to me than a domestic garden because of the wildness and the textures.”

Dave and I stopped later near Ellinwood. As he wandered in the ditch, I took photos of the adjacent wheat field. When he returned, there were 10 mosquitoes riding his back.

As we drove off, hot and sweaty and bug-bitten, he said, “That’s the price of admission: chiggers, mosquitoes, and the occasional tick. But it’s worth it.”

“That’s why I get the photos that other people don’t – they have more sense than I do,” he laughed.

Dave often returns from photography trips with a sweat-drenched shirt, a water line on his jeans, and mud on his back pockets. I imagine his mother had to deal with similar laundry issues.

One day in May, Dave came home beaming after a morning on horseback, photographing Ryan Arndt and a crew of cowboys in Chase County as they rounded up cattle and worked the calves.

The Flint Hills had woken up with fog that morning and Dave brought home dozens of incredible photos. He created an electronic slide show set to music. Both the slide show and a number of prints were on display, along with work from other photographers, at the Symphony in the Flint Hills Gallery in Cottonwood Falls during the rodeo and symphony weekends.

Dave will be teaching photography classes at the Emporia Public Library on July 1, 8 and 15 (at 2 p.m.). The three sessions will be on taking, editing, and sharing digital photos. (To register, or for more information, contact the library at 340-6462.)

When I met Dave about 19 years ago, he wouldn’t have anything to do with cameras. He had kept his Nikon from his days as a portrait photographer in Salina, but he didn’t use it. He was burned out from shooting countless portraits and weddings.

It wasn’t until Dave created our website (FlyoverPeople.net) in 2004 that he got back into photography – digital, this time. I bought myself a little Canon Elph and exploring Kansas together with cameras is something we’ve done with gusto ever since.

In addition to being a whiz kid with photography, Dave is also a computer genius. He works as Web and Media Manager for the Emporia school district.

While many folks are enamored by his landscape photos which capture the dramatic and diverse moods of Kansas, it’s those weed, grass and wildflower shots that Dave enjoys the most.

“I put on a clean pair of jeans the other day and they still had grass stains on the knees. It’s kind of like being a painter,” he said, pleased that the effort of his work remained as a badge of identification.

To view Dave’s photos, check out www.flyoverpeople.net/galleries.htm.

Copyright 2010 ~ Cheryl Unruh

“Greenthread Wildflowers #1” ~ Dave Leiker

“Clover – before opening” ~ Dave Leiker