Coal to Solar For The New York Times
For this New York Times story on Minnesota’s shift from coal to solar, we spent the day documenting how the landscape of energy is changing—literally. At the site of the former Sherco coal plant in Becker, Minnesota. Xcel Energy is building one of the largest solar farms in the Midwest, a place where smokestacks once defined the skyline.
The only way to truly capture the essence of this transformation was from the air. Flying the drone above the vast grid of panels revealed the striking contrast between Minnesota’s energy past and its future—the symmetry of the solar arrays stretching across former coal grounds, now gleaming under the summer sun.
It was a reminder of how quickly stories evolve, and how photography allows us to witness change not just in people, but in the land itself.
