Clarkson had been an editor at The Topeka Capital-Journal and is well-known for his work with National Geographic and Sports Illustrated. “He took me under his wing,” Wilson said. Wilson followed that learning experience by freelancing for the Kansas City Royals and K.C. Chiefs, and taking jobs at newspapers to fill in the gaps in his sports photography assignments. He later worked full-time at The Emporia Gazette before going out on his own, all the while photographing weddings, babies and other subjects in his spare time. Along the way, he developed his own style and technical expertise — and perhaps most importantly — his eye for seeing a subject differently than casual observers and other professionals, as well. “I basically kind of started shooting for myself and started playing around with landscapes and decided to go into business for myself,” he said, “but I was still trying to find why would somebody want my artwork versus somebody else’s. “What’s going to make me different? And that was that creative bug … That’s what started driving me. It’s not about taking a pic-
Hills Pet
ture of a bobwhite quail, it’s trying to shoot it differently.” Wildlife and scenery — especially Flint Hills images — dominate Wilson’s recent works as his technique evolves. For a time, he’d waited patiently for hours, taking perhaps a thousand photos, to produce the image he wanted. Now, he is more methodical, though one of his best-known shots came from a spontaneous encounter with the family cat. “It was one of those things where that shot took me five minutes to get,” Wilson said. “It was one of those spur-of-the-moment things.” He had been on his way to an appointment when he spotted the cat playing with a field mouse. He took shots for several minutes, went on to his appointment and was pleasantly surprised later, when he had time to look at the photos. “The cat tossed the mouse up in the air, and I took a picture of it,” he said. The resulting photo shows the cat on its hind feet, forelegs upstretched toward a mouse that appears suspended in air. “I didn’t add a mouse in Photoshop. … It was the shot I was hoping to get,” Wilson said. Storms and lightning, too, are a favorite with the photographer,
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