American Bison at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve
A short 31 miles west of Bartlesville, OK and 8 miles north of Pawhuska is an amazing preserve that is the home to nearly 2,400 American Bison. Until three days ago I had no idea that this place even existed in my home state of Oklahoma.
Three days ago a good friend of mine, T3 reached out to me asking if I would photograph some bison for the foundation that he runs - The Kimmell Foundation. Rather than telling you everything the Kimmell Foundation does and what the significance is with the American Bison I thought I would give you the links to their site.
The Kimmell Foundation Website
Meet Bud the Kimmell Foundation Bison
So.. when T3 reached out to me I obviously said absolutely I will be happy to get some shots for you. He explained that they are using the images for a series of cards/notecards/stationary to give as gifts to donors and VIPs and also for them to write notes to people and mail. He explained that all the cards would have my information listed on the back which is cool! I was then off to the planning process.
It so happened that I was having coffee with my good friend Robert who is an amazing photographer and if you have read any of my other blog posts I have mentioned him before. As we were talking I brought up the opportunity to shoot some bison for the Kimmell Foundation. True to form Robert had someone for me to reach out to. Robert shot me the contact information for a friend of his - Ken. Robert explained that Ken lived in Bartlesville and photographs the bison at the preserve multiple times a month. Ken responded not only with information but - “Let’s head out there together and I will show you around.” Not sure I could ask for more than that.
Today came and I met up with Ken around 1:45 and we started the short drive to the preserve and where Ken knew we could find bison. When I say find the bison we are talking about 2,400 bison which is a large number but they are spread out across 30,000 acres. Once we entered the preserve you could see small herds of bison a good distance away from the gravel road that weaves all around the preserve. We finally came to a section of the road and there they were.. A small herd of about 15-20 bison crossing the gravel road we had parked on. I quickly grabbed my trusty Nikon D850 and threw on the 70-200 f2.8 lens and jumped out of my truck and the rest is history.
After three hours of driving around the preserve, snapping shots of multiple bison, trekking across the fields to get closer the sun started to set and we were done the day. All in all I shot about 500 photos and now it’s on to sorting and editing them for the Kimmell Foundation.
In summary… if you have never been to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve outside of Bartlesville, OK it’s truly amazing and it should be on your list of must see places.
Joseph H. Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve Website
JBP
