The Terra Galleria Blog – QT Luong

In 2024, although I went on two trips outside of California, I traveled even less than last year, reflecting, and focusing again on photographing close to home.

It was not entirely by design. The first half of the year was relatively active in terms of travel. We organized a ski trip and a backpacking trip in the Northern Sierra Nevada, both outings we had wanted to do with our family for a while.

Seeing how awesome a total eclipse was at my first viewing in 2017, I wanted to ensure we could witness the event as a family, especially since the next chance in America would take place in 2044. Texas usually displays less cloudiness than other locales further north, and Lanchi favors mild temperatures. Despite its oversized place in American geography and culture, within the family, I was the only one to have traveled in that state before. Besides visiting urban Texas destinations, we spent a day at Caddo Lake, whose swamp forest growing out of the water has emerged as a premier destination for nature landscape photography. Although I was there at the “wrong” time, I collected plenty of information and a few photos.

We traveled as far as Arkansas, where we visited – what else? – Hot Springs National Park that I had seen before in autumn and winter, but not in spring. Bathhouse Row was shockingly crowded, but the trails quiet. The park was located on the path of totality. As the weather forecast appeared slightly more favorable there than in Texas, we considered staying to watch the eclipse. However, the kids had had enough of the place.

Although eclipse day was forecast to be cloudy in Texas, we lucked out as the sky in Waco cleared minutes before the eclipse. Since the scenery was unremarkable, this time, I focussed on the dark circle in the sky, making close-up shots of the eclipse.

My journey through American Samoa’s National Park from late May to early June was an adventure of highs and lows. From cloudy snorkeling attempts and camera mishaps to hiking lush trails and experiencing Samoan hospitality, each moment revealed the park’s remote beauty and allure. Many visit only the developed main island of Tuitula, but as I did twenty-two years before, I aimed to also visit the two undeveloped islands of Tau and Ofu, which are seen by no more than a few hundred tourists each year. Ofu is the perfect setting for a tropical vacation, but given the expense, time, and carbon footprint of getting there, and because I had specific goals including a difficult under-over split photograph, I started burdened by the weight of expectations and pressure. Because of that, in the moment the trip often appeared difficult and unproductive, as chronicled in a detailed personal account of my week on Ofu Island, although in the end, I recognized such a privilege it was just to be there.

Like the previous year, I had kept my September schedule open to return to Kobuk Valley National Park in northwest Arctic Alaska in my quest for night photographs in each national park. However, this year the favorable celestial window between no night and full moon was only a few days. Cloudy weather forecasts, combined with other factors, led me to postpone the trip to next year. I then left my calendar open through October for a road trip to pay a visit to one of my photographic heroes in his old age, but this, too did not happen due to communication difficulties. I thought that November may not be the best time to travel because of potential unrest, although it turned out that there were no claims of election fraud after all. When December came, the chances of Chiricahua National Monument and Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park being re-designated national parks appeared high – Sports Illustrated reported erroneously the latter as a done thing. Although Arizonans have been trying for four legislative sessions, there was a chance that a less worthy site would have beat them to the finish line even though the Georgians’ first bill was from this year. Hoping to keep my decades-long streak to be the first to photograph each national park, I remained on standby for legislation that did not happen – unsurprisingly in retrospect given how a government shutdown was again averted at the last minute.

Despite the apparent setbacks, the year was somehow productive. I read and engaged in overdue reflection about my practice to find more meaning. In the process, I shook up the compulsion to update my website and social media channels. I also made quite a few photographs. The Lightroom Library Filter indicates that I took close to 10,000 pictures in 2024, much more than in 2021 and 2022, and in the same ballpark as many other years. Not counting family photos taken at home, I photographed more regularly than I had ever done before, generally at least twice a week. In the past, like photographers such as Michael Kenna or David DuChemin, I needed to travel somewhere far away to find inspiration. With my new focus on the place where I live, this is no longer the case. I continued to photograph on hikes in local nature preserves (also here) but the family-oriented character of those excursions reduced their photographic focus.

On the other hand, my visits to the Coyote Creek Trail were solitary and helped me produce more consistent work. The trail also lies closer to home than any other public land. The distance of 4.5 miles to the house is small enough that I have on several occasions walked out of my door, jogged to the trail, traveled a section of it, and returned home, all on foot and in a few hours. With a weekly visit that I always look forward to with anticipation, familiarity builds up quickly. The familiarity in turn makes me more attuned to changes. Through-hikers on long-distance trails such as the Pacific Crest Trail often say “The trail provides”. The Coyote Creek Trail is considerably more modest and less wild, yet it never failed to provide me with something new on each visit. Each time I started thinking that I had seen everything, it surprised me. I had taken pictures along its course for a decade, however it is only in the last two years that I did it with intention. That this changed how I approached the trail is a testament to the power of photography to make us pay more attention. The focus of those last years has made it possible to gather enough images for a book or two. I spent some time editing and hope for a publication in 2026. So far, as a warm-up, I have shown a few landscapes and some wildlife. In the next post, I will debut a more representative selection from the project with images you don’t necessarily expect from me.

If you have read so far, my sincere thanks for your interest in my work. I wish you and your family a belated happy new year 2025 full of happiness, health, joy, peace, and wonder.