landscape photography

  • Storm Light in Great Basin National Park

    Bymichael

    The park sits in the Snake Range of eastern Nevada, about 300 miles from Las Vegas and 70 miles from the Utah border — as geographically isolated as any park in the contiguous United States. It receives fewer than 130,000 visitors a year, making it one of the least visited parks in the system. The nearest towns are tiny. The nearest city with an airport is hours away. The isolation that discourages most visitors is precisely what makes it extraordinary for photographers — specifically for the one thing Great Basin does better than almost any place in the continental United States: the night sky.

  • Inside Dry Tortugas National Park

    Bymichael

    The waters surrounding the fort and the other Tortugas keys are among the clearest in Florida — the distance from any mainland development means minimal runoff and minimal light pollution, and the visibility underwater can exceed 100 feet on calm days. The coral reef along the southern and western edges of the park supports the same Caribbean reef ecosystem as Biscayne and the Florida Keys, with the added protection of extreme remoteness that keeps fishing and boat traffic minimal. Sea turtles — the green and loggerhead species that gave the islands their name — nest on the beaches of the outer keys and are regularly visible in the surrounding waters.

  • Finding Light in Capitol Reef National Park

    Bymichael

    Capitol Reef is the middle child of the Utah parks — less famous than Zion and Bryce to the southwest, less visited than Arches and Canyonlands to the east, consistently overlooked in favor of its more celebrated neighbors. Most visitors to southern Utah drive Highway 24 through the park without stopping, catching a glimpse of the Waterpocket Fold from the road and continuing toward whichever more famous park is on the itinerary. This is a mistake.

  • The Light at Biscayne National Park

    Bymichael

    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 largest marine national parks in the system and the largest national park in Florida by area. The park’s above-water component is relatively small: a narrow strip of mangrove coastline on the mainland, the Dante Fascell Visitor Center at Convoy Point, and a chain of small islands — the northern Keys — that are accessible only by boat. Elliott Key, the largest island in the park, has a campground, hiking trails through tropical hardwood hammock forest, and the swimming beach at Hurricane Harbor.

  • Storm Light in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park

    Bymichael

    Some landscapes carry more personal history than others. Hawai’i is one of those for me — not one visit but several, each belonging to a different chapter. A honeymoon. A family trip with a daughter in her early teens, watching her see the islands for the first time. And then the final state of my 50 at 60 journey, the trip that closed a year of travel through all fifty states — a stay in Waikiki, the most visited corner of the most visited island, surrounded by everything that Hawaiian tourism has built around the experience of being there.

  • Inside Wind Cave National Park

    Bymichael

    Every photographer eventually builds a list of places they almost visited. Wind Cave National Park went on that list during my 50 at 60 journey through the Dakotas — I was in the area, saw it on the map, noted it as somewhere I should head. I was tight on time. I kept moving. The park stayed on the map and in the back of my mind, which is exactly where unfinished business tends to live.

  • Finding Light in Lassen Volcanic National Park

    Bymichael

    The Manzanita Lake reflection is the primary sunrise target and it operates on the same wind-and-calm logic as every mountain lake reflection in the park system. The window is pre-dawn, before the morning breeze develops on the lake surface — typically the first 30 to 45 minutes of light, when the peak catches the alpenglow above and the reflection below holds the color of the pre-dawn sky. The campground at Manzanita Lake puts you at the lake shore without a commute, which is the practical advantage for the 5am start the reflection requires.

  • Chasing Light in Virgin Islands National Park

    Bymichael

    Some landscapes become part of our imagination through work rather than vacation. I have spent time in the Caribbean on projects — a week living in an Airbnb in the Bahamas while lighting a high-end wedding, three containers of equipment shipped to the island, a golf cart as the primary mode of transportation between the venue and wherever the light needed to be. That week taught me something that no amount of travel photography research can substitute for: the Caribbean has a pace, and the pace is the point.

  • Inside Indiana Dunes National Park

    Bymichael

    When planning a visit to America’s national parks, Indiana is not usually the first state that comes to mind. Most people, if asked to name a national park in Indiana, would pause. Some would guess incorrectly. The existence of Indiana Dunes National Park — on the southern shore of Lake Michigan, about 50 miles from downtown Chicago — genuinely surprises people, and that surprise is worth examining because it says something about how we think about what a national park is supposed to be.

  • First Light at Sequoia National Park

    Bymichael

    The question of how Sequoia differs from the Redwoods is worth answering directly, because it comes up for anyone who has visited one and is planning the other. The coast redwoods are the tallest trees — they grow in a narrow coastal fog belt in northern California and reach heights up to 380 feet. The giant sequoias are the largest trees by volume — they grow on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada between 5,000 and 7,000 feet and reach trunk diameters of up to 40 feet. The redwood forest feels like a cathedral of vertical space. The sequoia grove feels like standing among ancient monuments. Both are extraordinary. They are not the same experience.