Terra Galleria Photography

Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

Twelve More Black and White Landscape Photography Books

https://www.terragalleria.com/blog/twelve-more-black-and-white-landscape-photography-books In the second installment of my selection of favorite black-and-white landscape photography books, we are moving up a bit in time compared to the first list, which did not include any living photographer. At sixty, I am no spring chicken, however all the photographers on this list are my seniors. Some are quite active […]

Tracing the History of National Park Service Emblems through Visitor Guides

https://www.terragalleria.com/blog/tracing-the-history-of-national-park-service-emblems-through-visitor-guides On the 108th anniversary of the National Park Service (NPS) this article continues my examination of the official NPS visitor guides over the years, focussing this time on one particular element: the NPS emblem. If you haven’t done so, reading the previous installments of this series will provide context. Part 4 of an on-going […]

The Best National Parks Guidebooks

https://www.terragalleria.com/blog/the-best-national-parks-guidebooks National Park Week is upon us. My past write-ups acknowledged the role government and citizen organizations played in protecting our national parks. One of the takeaways from Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan’s The National Parks: America’s Best Idea was that their establishment also owes much to the tireless efforts of individual dedicated conservationists. However, […]

Wynn Bullock Books

Wynn Bullock (1902-1975) worked almost exclusively near his home in the Monterey Peninsula, yet in his pursuit of what exists in the world beyond ordinary perception, he created mysterious photographs that reached a universal, almost metaphysical quality. Their metaphorical meaning reveals the extraordinary behind the surface of things. In the mid-1990s, Moe’s bookstore shelves prominently […]

Twelve Classic Black and White Landscape Photography Books

When I came to America in 1993, my knowledge of past photographers was mostly limited to photojournalists working in the tradition of Cartier-Bresson whose humanist approach dominated the French photography scene. Discovering the landscape work of f/64 West Coast photographers such as Ansel Adams or the Westons in Bay Area museums and galleries was a […]

A Century of National Park Service Maps

On the 107th anniversary of the National Park Service (NPS) this article continues my examination of the official NPS visitor guides over the years, focussing this time on one particular element: the map. If you haven’t done so, reading the previous installments of this series will provide context. Part 3 of an on-going series: 1 […]

National Park Service Visitor Guides through the Years: Looking In

On the 106th anniversary of the National Park Service (NPS), this article continues where my previous write-up about the official NPS visitor guides stopped. As an introduction to the history of those publications over the years, we examined their front cover. In this article, we are going to open them and take a quick look […]

Treasured Lands Third Edition

The third edition of Treasured Lands has just arrived (order your copy). Although differences are not as many as between the first and the second edition, they were still enough for my distributor to request a new edition rather than another printing – overall the seventh. The New River Gorge chapter The main difference is […]

Our National Monuments pre-order – National Public Lands Day

Last Thanksgiving, I announced a new book depicting all the national monuments subject to the review of 2017. We missed the initial target release date of National Public Lands Day today. However, I am pleased to confirm that Our National Monuments will be published on Nov 9, with a special pre-publication offer ending on that […]

National Park Service Visitor Guides: A Brief History

A case could be made that the National Park Service (NPS), which celebrates today its 105th anniversary, would not have existed without the National Park Portfolio. In the early years, park rangers and guides were enough to provide guidance to the small number of visitors. However, as the visitation grew and visitors became more autonomous, […]