A Year In The NATIONAL PARKS

For the centennial anniversary of the National Park Service, I had a dream assignment. I traveled to and photographed all 59 (at the time) of the U.S. national parks in one year on assignment for National Geographic. While other Nat Geo photographers were spending up to a year on assignment in a single national park, I was racing through them at breakneck speed. It was a whirlwind year filled with more beauty and nature than any one person should ever get to experience in such a short timeframe.

If you’re doing the math, you’ve probably realized that photographing 59 national parks in 52 weeks is close to impossible, and you’d be right. But I was crazy enough to pitch it, and they were crazy enough to let me try to do it. Looking back, it was without a doubt one of the most challenging years of my life. I was out photographing every sunrise and sunset, I hiked