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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Finding Light in Kenai Fjords National Park
I was in the early days of my 50 at 60 journey — Alaska was state number two — and I found myself driving south…
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Inside Everglades National Park
The short version: I live about an hour from one of the most ecologically extraordinary national parks on the planet, and I have essentially not…
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Storm Light in Olympic National Park
I was staying at a small inn in Gig Harbor — Washington was the first state of my 50 at 60 journey, the trip that…
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Chasing Light in Badlands National Park
The color of the Badlands is what most visitors remember and most photographs fail to communicate accurately. The formations are not one color — they…
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The Light at Redwood National and State Parks
Some landscapes become part of our imagination long before we ever visit them. The redwood coast of northern California is one of those — the…
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Chasing Light in Death Valley National Park
As I write this, my social media feed is full of images from Death Valley that look nothing like the park I drove through. The…
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Finding Light in Cuyahoga Valley National Park
Cuyahoga Valley is 33,000 acres of forested river valley between Cleveland and Akron — a landscape shaped by the Cuyahoga River, glacial geology, 19th-century canal…
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Chasing Light in Denali National Park
When planning a visit to America’s national parks, some destinations carry a weight that the others do not. Denali is one of those. The highest…
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First Light at Grand Teton National Park
The park extends beyond the mountains into the Jackson Hole valley, with Oxbow Bend on the Snake River, the Willow Flats moose habitat, the sagebrush…
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Inside Shenandoah National Park
Some landscapes become part of our imagination long before we ever visit them. Shenandoah works differently. It becomes part of your imagination on the drive…
This collection grows with the journey — and the journey started long before I hit the road.