Can this photographers’ images of central Kansas help save the disappearing prairies?

Kansas City native Philip Heying has made his home outside of Matfield Green, Kansas, for the past 3 years. He says the landscape around the speck of a central Kansas town is under threat.
A migrating snapping turtle stopped near a pond on Dobbins Ranch at 6:30 on the evening of June 2, 2022. Philip Heying took her picture.

The ranch is just south of Matfield Green, Kansas, where the veteran photographer has lived for nearly three years. After residing, working, and exhibiting in France, Italy, New York, and California, Heying’s move to the speck of a town two hours southwest of Kansas City allows him to be “within the subject that I most want to photograph,” he writes on his website.

Heying’s was a homecoming with a mission. The Kansas Citian and University of Kansas graduate photographs the Flint Hills to draw attention to the grave danger they’re in and encourage others to act.