America's protected landscapes are more than beautiful places.
They represent decisions made across generations about what should remain.
That idea became the foundation for my book, Parks & Preservation: A Fine Art Journey Through 250 Years of America's Conservation Legacy.
Created as a black-and-white fine art monograph, the book explores America's natural landscapes through photography while considering the larger idea of preservation.
Why Parks?
National and state parks have been central to my photographic work for years.
They contain some of the country's most recognizable landscapes, but they also protect ecosystems, wildlife habitat, geological history, and cultural stories.
Photography has played an important role in helping Americans understand these places.
Long before today's digital media, landscape photographs allowed people to encounter remote areas they might never visit themselves.
Images helped transform distant landscapes into places people believed were worth protecting.
That relationship between photography and preservation continues to interest me.
Parks & Preservation: A Fine Art Journey
Created as a 138-page black-and-white fine art monograph, Parks & Preservation reflects on America’s protected landscapes and the enduring importance of conservation. Handmade in Italy, the First Edition is limited to 250 signed copies.
Why Black and White?
I deliberately created Parks & Preservation as a monochrome collection.
Removing color creates continuity between dramatically different landscapes.
Mountains, forests, deserts, wetlands, rock formations, and coastlines become connected through tone, texture, light, and form.
Black and white also encourages a slower kind of viewing.
Rather than being immediately attracted by a brilliant sunset or saturated landscape, the viewer is invited to examine structure.
Where does the light fall?
How does a mountain emerge through fog?
What lines has water carved into stone?
What does silence look like?
A Book Designed as an Art Object
The physical presentation of the book was important from the beginning.
Parks & Preservation is a hardcover fine art book with a slipcover, handmade in Italy.
The First Edition is limited to 250 signed copies.
At 138 pages, the book was designed not simply as a collection of photographs but as an object that encourages viewers to spend time with the work.
There is something meaningful about experiencing photography in print.
A book asks you to slow down.
Turn a page.
Pause.
Return to an image.
In an era dominated by rapidly moving digital imagery, that experience has become increasingly valuable.
Contours Beneath the Frame
Contours Beneath the Frame invites the viewer into a stark, contemplative terrain where nature’s rugged architecture takes center stage. Rendered in black and white, this fine art landscape distills the scene to form, light, and texture: rocky formations carved with deep grooves and sharp ridges, their surfaces weathered by time and revealed through a precise interplay of highlight and shadow. A gently sloping foreground of rough earth leads the gaze toward the imposing cliffs beyond, creating a natural visual pathway and a powerful sense of depth. Nestled within the composition, a small, unadorned wooden frame adds a quiet human presence—an understated gesture that “frames” the wilderness without intruding on its integrity. The result is a photograph that balances boldness with restraint, offering both dramatic structure and meditative calm.
Looking Back While Moving Forward
The book also represents an important stage in the evolution of my work.
My photography continues to expand into aerial perspectives and global environmental storytelling through projects such as The Living Blueprint and my forthcoming museum exhibition Edges of the Earth: Fragile Ecosystems from Reef to Glacier.
Yet Parks & Preservation remains connected to all of them.
The underlying question is the same:
How can photography help us see natural places more intentionally?
Preservation Begins with Attention
Conservation can feel enormous.
But awareness often begins with something very small.
A photograph.
A story.
A visit to a park.
A child seeing wildlife for the first time.
A person discovering a landscape they did not know existed.
Those individual experiences create connection.
And connection can create stewardship.
A portion of purchases from Doreen McGunagle Fine Art, including fine art photography and Parks & Preservation, supports Global Voices for Nature Foundation Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to conservation education and awareness.
The Foundation extends the purpose behind the photography: helping more people see, understand, and value the natural resources that belong to our shared environmental legacy.
Preservation begins when we decide something is worth carrying forward.