The Road to 63 · National Parks of America
One journey. Every park. A lifetime of light to chase.
There are currently 63 National Parks in America. One for every year I’ve been alive… give or take. The goal is simple: To visit all of them! But the mission is bigger than a checklist. It is to see each one of them slowly, deliberately, and with a fresh perspective.
I’ve already been to about 28 of these parks over the course of my life. But I was a different person then… moving fast, checking boxes, photographing on autopilot. This time I’m going back with slow travel eyes, a lighting professional’s obsession with when and where the light falls, and enough time to actually listen to what each place is trying to say.
The posts in this section are being built in advance of and alongside that journey. They’re part research, part planning, part love letter to landscapes I haven’t stood inside yet. Some parks I’ve visited before and am seeing again for the first time. Others I’m approaching completely fresh.
Every post is designed to be a free planning resource… for photographers, slow travelers, and anyone who wants to understand a park more deeply before they arrive. Think of it as a field guide in progress, built in public, one park at a time.
This collection grows with the journey — and the journey started long before I hit the road.
Parks In The Collection
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Storm Light in Channel Islands National Park
I have driven the Pacific Coast Highway and remember islands visible from the road — though whether those were the Channel Islands or the more…
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First Light at Petrified Forest National Park
Some landscapes become part of our imagination long before we ever visit them. Petrified Forest National Park became part of mine before I could read…
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Finding Light in Guadalupe Mountains National Park
Every photographer eventually builds a list of landscapes that exist in genuine geological relationship with each other. Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National…
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The Light at Carlsbad Caverns National Park
The caverns sit beneath the Chihuahuan Desert of southeastern New Mexico, and what is underground there is not a modest geological curiosity. The Big Room…
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Finding Light in Glacier Bay National Park
Some landscapes become part of our imagination through comparison. Glacier Bay National Park entered mine through Kenai Fjords — the Alaska park where a spontaneous…
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Chasing Light in North Cascades National Park
Every photographer eventually builds a list of landscapes they drove away from. North Cascades National Park is on that list — east of Seattle, east…
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Storm Light in Great Basin National Park
The park sits in the Snake Range of eastern Nevada, about 300 miles from Las Vegas and 70 miles from the Utah border — as…
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Inside Dry Tortugas National Park
The waters surrounding the fort and the other Tortugas keys are among the clearest in Florida — the distance from any mainland development means minimal…
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Finding Light in Capitol Reef National Park
Capitol Reef is the middle child of the Utah parks — less famous than Zion and Bryce to the southwest, less visited than Arches and…
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The Light at Biscayne National Park
Biscayne National Park protects 172,000 acres of southern Biscayne Bay, the upper Florida Keys, and the offshore coral reefs — making it one of the…
This collection grows with the journey — and the journey started long before I hit the road.