Nebraska at Night
Photos and story by George Burba
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| On a windy night, photographer George Burba saw this tree in his headlights near Branched Oak Lake near Raymond. |
Twelve years ago, I came to Nebraska from Moscow , Russia , and I think it took a year or two before I really started to see. The beauty here is very subtle. You have to wait for it but if you wait, it's amazing.
I've spent time in a field, waiting for a cloud to pass, for the light to be just right. In Moscow , the clouds don't build up like they do here. Moscow is in the middle of a huge continent, without mountains to the east, and so the weather evens out before it gets there.
I started doing night photography about 10 years ago, using a film camera. It's difficult to do because you waste so much expensive film out of five rolls, you'll get maybe two good shots. With a digital camera, which I use now, you see the result right away and you can delete it if you don't like it. You see what's wrong, so you know what to adjust.
In night photography, you don't know what will come out. Most of the time the result is much worse than you expect, but sometimes it's much better. The camera sees things that the human eye can't see.
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| A prairie fire near Indian Cave State Park creates an eerie glow in the night sky. |
The rest of Burba's essay and many more of his night photos are available in the May/June 2005 issue of Nebraska Life.
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| 10th Street in Lincoln. |