Images of America's National Parks
America's national parks attract millions of awed visitors every year, from every continent and every country. While just about every one of them brings along a camera, few come away with even a single image that reflects the rich variety and endless splendor of what they have seen. From the dusty red sandstone formations of Arches, the miraculous chasm of the Grand Canyon, and the rugged beauty of Yellowstone to the primal forests of the Smokies and the secret mysteries of the Everglades, the national park system is so rich in its natural splendor as to be almost impossible to document.
Stan Jorstad, however, has a different relationship to his camera than most park visitors - or than most of the world's best photographers, for that matter. After photographing the parks for most of his professional career, he has finally completed the task of documenting them all, and in a fashion that bears little resemblance to the work anyone else has published.
Strongly influenced by Ansel Adams, his mentor and friend, Jorstad nonetheless photographs in color, and the results are quite simply breathtaking. He has also worked with a panoramic camera, and so this dazzling book includes some of the most beautiful landscape photos ever published.
This stunning photography is paired here with a marvelous text by the American poet laureate Mark Strand, himself no stranger to art and nature. Following the template developed with his highly regarded meditation on the painter Edward Hopper, Strand writes on the impact of Jorstad's images and reflects on the meaning and experience of the national parklands themselves. Both beautiful and fascinating, 'These Rare Lands' is be immensely satisfying to both the eye and the mind.
