With the national parks’ much-touted 100th anniversary winding down, we’ve seen a number of books, documentaries, articles, and even hands-on, parkwide science events, all celebrating the National Park Service. 

Among the books showcasing the park service, Picturing America’s National Parks, published by Aperture with the George Eastman Foundation, stands out for its examination of the role photography has played in the parks’ history. It includes luminaries, such as the earliest photos of Carelton E. Watkins and Ansel Adams’ park-defining images as well as more recent work by Lee Friedlander and Rebecca Norris Webb. This book shows how photography not only helped shaped the national park system, by encouraging tourists to visit, but also had a very real impact on the creation of it.

Throughout the parks’ 100-year history, photographs have helped draw visitors so they can experience the majesty of the parks themselves. As we all know, whether it is a photo of the Grand Canyon or Isle Royal, a picture is never as powerful as seeing these spectacular places in person.

William Henry Jackson’s early images of Yellowstone’s greatest features, such as Old Faithful and the Lower Falls, along with artist Thomas Moran’s classic painting The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, brought the majesty of the West to leaders in Washington, DC. These images helped persuade Congress and President Ulysses S. Grant to name Yellowstone as the first national park in 1872.

Yo-wi-ye, or Nevada Falls, 1861. Albumen silver print. Carleton E. Watkins/George Eastman Museum, gift of Alden Scott Boyer.

The Three Brothers, Yosemite, 1911. Gum bichromate over platinum print. Alvin Langdon Coburn/George Eastman Museum, bequest of the photographer

Picturing America’s National Parks showcases a number of photographers whose work reflect trends in photography over the years. You have early, large-plate photography, sometimes hand-colored. There’s the technical perfectionism of Adams’, Edward Weston’s and Minor White’s images. The book also showcases more pedestrian photography, such as postcards and tourist images over the years of iconic park sights like the Old Faithful Geyser. As you see the clothing and photography styles evolve in the photos, these images give a fascinating look at how the landscape of the parks changed to accommodate swelling numbers of tourists.

Mirror Lake and Reflections, ca. 1872 Eadweard J. Muybridge/George Eastman Museum, museum accession by exchange

George Eastman at the Grand Canyon, July 12, 1930 Audley D. Stewart/George Eastman Museum, gift of University of Rochester

The book is arranged chronologically, thus when the ’50s and ’60s come into view, you have photographers like Garry Winogrand and Joel Sternfeld pulling back with a wider lens, focusing as much on the visitors as the landmarks they came to see. This trend culminates in Roger Minick’s excellent series Sightseers, which he shot in the 1980s, focusing specifically on tourists.

Running water, Roaring Fork Road, Gt. Smoky Mts., October 10, 1967  Eliot Porter/George Eastman Museum, gift of Murray Beckerman and Abraham Altus

As the book brings us to more modern times, we see more artistic takes on picturing the parks, such as Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe’s project Reconstructing the View, which incorporates historical images repurposed in recently photographed vistas. All in all, it’s a truly excellent survey of photography of the national parks, even if the work selected leans particularly heavy on the parks of the West, such as Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone.

There’s so much more to the national parks.

Old Faithful geyser, Yellowstone National Park, August 1968 Unknown/George Eastman Museum, gift of Peter J. Cohen.

Woman on Head and Photographer with Camera; Unknown Dancer and Alvin Langdon Coburn at Grand View Point, 2009. From the series Reconstructing the View: Grand Canyon Photographs. Mark C. Klett and Byron Wolfe/George Eastman Museum, gift of the artists

Sunrise on Mesquite Flat Dunes, Death Valley, California, 2013 David Benjamin Sherry

Mountains + Valleys: Arches, Diptych, 2013 Millee Tibbs


If you buy a book using a Bookshop link on this page, a small share of the proceeds supports our journalism.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate