K-Stater uses a traditional photography style to showcase Kansas from its borders

Posted May 13, 2025

Editor's note: This story by Tim Schrag '12 was prepared for K-Stater magazine. Members of the K-State Alumni Association can read more exclusive content like this in each issue.

In 2021, Cary Conover ’96 had an idea to capture the beauty in the mundane, the acquired taste that is Kansas. Conover, a photographer and educator from Wichita, had completed a photo series called Close to Home which highlighted his Wichita neighborhood within a mile radius of home and was looking to start a new project.

He set out to extend his radius. He wanted to explore parts of the state he hadn’t seen before. He also didn’t want to take a cliché photo of a sunflower field.

What came from that is the Kansas Border Project, a series of black and white photos looking into Kansas from across its four state lines.

“It was during the pandemic, when I was thinking of ways to escape the population density of the city,” he said.

Over the course of the next four years Conover scouted locations using Google Street View, loaded up his Honda with his camera equipment, tripod and a map and away he went traveling backroads, highways and county lines.

“Somehow I just thought it was an elegant expansion on that idea and all of a sudden it’s turned into four years and has a foothold,” he said. “There’s just something about any kind of limitation that I’m really interested in.”

The idea behind the project was to highlight the dichotomy of documentation versus depiction of Kansas. He pulled influences from Mark Klett, Gordon Parks ’70 and Richard Misrach.

The series is a blend of styles, both photojournalistic and artistic.

“I photograph this with a very, very traditional approach,” he said. “I do like to think that it's going beyond a kind of romantic tradition, and it's a little bit of a break toward something more. I'm really interested also in the sort of spectrum between documentation and depiction. I feel like I can be very factual, and that really is a big part of my core: photojournalism and truth. But then I also feel like there is that element of, I get to choose what it is I'm photographing, and it's a depiction. So, there is that sort of romance, and it is my home state, and all of that is a love letter to my state.”

Conover trained as a photojournalist at K-State, earning a degree in journalism. While at K-State, he honed the craft of photography and its various elements working for the Royal Purple yearbook and Collegian Media Group. This style of photography helped prepare him for a career in journalism which took him to assignments with The Village Voice, The New York Times and other publications. He now teaches and advises the journalism program at Andover High School and serves as an adjunct instructor of photography at Newman University.

These photos in the Kansas Border project showcase rural life, neighborhoods, farm ground, pastures, common views many Kansans see daily and some views a little less traveled.

Conover noted that during this project he’s driven countless miles and covered all regions of the state. He added that while he found endless rows of crops, the varied landscapes gave him an appreciation for the beauty of Kansas.

“This is not the ‘middle of nowhere,’” he said. “This is someone's front yard, it's very diverse. Visually, it’s not just flat, there’s a lot of variety.”

While his work does feature spots like I-70 from the Colorado and Missouri borders, it offers unique views that most wouldn’t otherwise see.

Though he rarely came across people along the borders, one moment stands out as he was photographing a cemetery in Opolis, Kansas, along the Missouri border. A gentleman came up to him to visit, calling the location the “Metropolis of Opolis” and quipped he wished Conover could have waited until he had cut the grass to take the picture.

“I think if I was wandering around the state a lot, the pictures – I'm almost certain – would hinge on the quirky or surreal," he said. “And I feel like you could live 50 lifetimes wandering around Kansas and still not capture it all." This is why the idea of limitations appeals to Conover. "My project is a departure from the vastness and unlimited choices of photographing within the state. The border is a hard limit, and I feel more in control by sticking to it."

To view more of the Kansas Broder Project or more of Cary Conover’s work visit caryconoverphotography.com.

The Kansas - Nebraska - Colorado border