A Year Photographing The National Parks
Ten features from an epic visit capturing all of the U.S. public parks
For the centennial commemoration of the National Park Service, I had a fantasy task capturing the public parks. I went to and captured every one of the 59 (at that point) of the U.S. public parks in a single year for National Geographic. While other Nat Geo picture takers were going through as long as a year on task in a solitary public park, I was dashing through them dangerously fast. It was a hurricane year loaded up with more magnificence and nature than any one individual ought to at any point get to encounter in such a short time period.
The book, A Year in the National Parks: The Greatest American Road Trip, annals Irish’s experience.
In case you’re crunching the numbers, you’ve likely understood that shooting 59 public parks in 52 weeks is near unimaginable, and you’d be correct. Yet, I was sufficiently insane to pitch it, and they were adequately insane to allow me to attempt to do it. Thinking back, it was beyond question one of the most difficult long stretches of my life. I was out capturing each dawn and nightfall, I climbed the entire day, altered until quite a bit later (when I wasn’t shooting astrophotography), and got almost no rest all year long.
I had so many euphoric, “squeeze me-I’m-dreaming” minutes also. In a nation as different and beautiful as the United States, the public parks address the best of us. They are the spots we hold generally hallowed, for their virtue and stunning excellence.
Before this task:
I had as of now visited about portion of the U.S. public parks, either all alone or on task for different distributions. The public parks are exceptionally unique to me; they are the place where I experienced passionate feelings for investigating the outside, and they assumed a major part in me turning into a picture taker. For the centennial of the Park Service, I needed to challenge myself and to reward those spots that had given me such a great amount over my lifetime.
It’s exceptionally difficult to distil a whole year of astonishing public park view into a short rundown, yet I’ve attempted to share a portion of my cherished pictures and minutes here. If you somehow happened to ask me tomorrow or one week from now to do a similar exercise, I’d probably have something else altogether.
Some of the time during this undertaking, I felt like it was totally out of line to assume acknowledgment for any photographs since it was really nature that was doing all the hard work.
Extraordinary Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve
I love shooting sand rises, and there is maybe no more excellent spot to do as such than Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in Colorado. These are the tallest hills in North America, tucked facing the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and deal unlimited freedoms for inventive photography. My cherished second from visiting this park came not from catching the light and shadow at play on the ridges during dawn and dusk, however from hiking far into the hills and going through the night under the stars. The absence of light contamination, combined with the fabulous tent area and the splendid star show overhead, was a memorable night. Indeed, this picture wound up turning into the front of the book about the undertaking, A Year in the National Parks: The Greatest American Road Trip.