The Terra Galleria Blog – QT Luong

In 2023, I mostly continued last year’s break. I focused on photographing close to where I live but also started to get back to faraway trips.

I shifted to photography near home for many reasons. On the personal side, I wanted to spend more time with family, and also reduce my environmental footprint. There were even more motivations on the artistic side, a coincidence with the end of an era. I liked being able to return to a location time and time again, finding beauty in mundane and overlooked places where nobody photographs. I’ve been thinking about the evolution of the concept of wilderness, shifting from perceiving untouched landscapes as sacred and separate to acknowledging them as integral parts of the human-influenced environment where I live. Besides nearby nature preserves, I paid attention to urban parks ranging from the Coyote Creek Trail where I’ve compiled a substantial body of work to disparate places such as Berkeley’s People’s Park. Besides photographing the home itself, one cannot be much closer to home than in the following photographs. I took the first images while walking out of my backyard, along a creek, and into nearby hills on a beautiful early February morning. The last one from later in the month when the wet winter treated us to rare snow, was captured less than two miles away from home.

A bit further, but still neighboring the Bay Area, I made multiple visits to Ford Ord National Monument in the south during winter and spring. Although mostly viewed by the locals as a recreation area, I found that a closer look revealed a worthy nature preserve with interesting biodiversity where the subtle but diverse landscape included several Central Coast ecosystems. In the north, I traveled to Berryessa-Snow Mountain National Monument, which of all the great parklands included in Our National Monuments is the closest to home. Although my timing for wildflowers was a bit off, I hiked several trails new to me in total solitude.

These days, I am mostly recognized for landscapes in America’s public lands, but I have also traveled and photographed extensively in Asia. I find that continent much cheaper than Europe, more exotic, more friendly, and the jet lag works in my favor. Despite my love and reverence for nature, from time to time, I find a radical break in pace and environment most stimulating. It was good to resume international travel with the family for the first time since 2019 on the occasion of an April trip to Tokyo. The most pleasant discovery was Enoshima Island which despite being only an hour away from Tokyo’s urban core felt like a world away, with an interesting mix of the spiritual and the kitsch, the ancient and the modern, and of nature and man-made.

On October 14, 2023, an annular eclipse moved through the U.S. West, the last of its kind visible from the country until 2044. Due to a mental episode, the trip to Japan with teenagers had turned out way more challenging than we expected, so I was surprised that when I proposed a road trip to watch the eclipse, the kids were excited enough that they did not mind the 1400-mile drive and outdoor living. At the last minute, we chose a location that would work for everybody in Great Basin National Park. Despite difficult conditions, I managed to make photographs and a time-lapse of the eclipse.

For more than five years, I’ve been trying to travel to Alaska in the fall to finish my national park projects, but something always got in the way. First, it was the urgency of the national monuments, then the pandemic, and in 2022 the weather. Although the latter wasn’t that promising in 2023, feeling the call of the wild, my friend Tommy and I decided to give the trip the go. Despite the frequent rain, after a quick impromptu visit to Denali National Park, our outing to Gates of the Arctic National Park via Anaktuvuk Pass was a satisfying wilderness and human experience, and in Wrangell-St Elias National Park, besides hiking a spectacular trail with views and history, I lucked out when I made the elusive night photograph for which I had come.

Fittingly for a year where I have photographed nature locally more than before, the last highlight occurred at Point Reyes National Seashore. Friends from the UC Berkeley’s hiking club came together for a 30th-anniversary reunion. On that last backpacking trip of the year at the edge of the winter rains in mid-December, we went strolling on the beach at night to have a good time, not expecting to see anything. Again, nature gifted wonderment, leading to my first time I photographing bioluminescence in the surf. At the end of a year that had turned rather dark, it was also a reminder that light can be found in unexpected places.

If you have read so far, my sincere thanks for your interest in my work. I wish you and your family a happy new year 2024 full of happiness, health, joy, peace, and wonder.