These unique and remarkable photographs of the Great Plains, taken by artist/photographer Georg Joutras over the span of two decades, show the breathtaking grandeur of prairie and sky, the sometimes nuanced, other times brilliant colors of earth and evening light, the titanic scale of clouds and sun and horizon, and the intimate postures of its wild creatures.

Joutras’s Great Plains are photographed from the heart, with reverence and wonder at the miraculously preserved ancient environment through which he pilgrimages. His powerful images conduct an unmediated sensuous immersion in nature, evoking the feel of the wind, the smell of earth, the sounds of sandhill cranes, the wary, watchful eyes of predators or prey, and an aura of simultaneous wildness and repose. These photographs, executed with boldness yet conceived and understood in humility, are glimpses of a transcendent world of light, color, and suspended time that we are privileged to witness.

These magnificent images—including both landscapes and wildlife portraits—are accompanied by a searching examination of all that it means to photograph the plains and its creatures. Beyond the physical challenges, the distances trekked, and the opportunities lost, what emerges is the joy in sharing the wildness and the vastness, the antiquity and the innocence, the fragility and the vitality of this unique land bounded by earth, sky, and light.