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| People Overview | Historical Figures | National Park Service | People Behind the Parks |
Park Visitors | Artists and Writers | Contemporary Commentators |
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Photographer Tuan Luong, Kings Canyon National Park |
Born in Paris, France to Vietnamese parents, Tuan Luong is the only photographer to have taken large-format photographs in all 58 national parks, a feat he completed in the summer of 2002 when he photographed the sand dunes at Kobuk Valley National Park, above the Arctic circle in Alaska.
Prior to taking up photography, Luong earned a degree in artificial intelligence and worked as a scientist in the fields of artificial intelligence and image processing. He is also an accomplished mountain climber.
He lives in San Jose, California, and offers his photographs of national parks and other locations for sale through his website, terragalleria.com.
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Chiura Obata, a Painter of Yosemite (04:53) |
Obata was a Japanese immigrant and renowned artist who spent much of his career painting landscapes of Yosemite National Park. He also taught at the University of California, Berkeley.
During World War II, Obata and his family were relocated to an internment camp in Topaz, Utah, where he founded the Topaz Art School and encouraged his fellow prisoners to look to nature, as he did, for strength during the "intolerable sin" of their incarceration. One of his watercolors from the camp was donated to Eleanor Roosevelt, in thanks for her speaking out against the internment of Japanese-Americans. After the war, he returned to teaching and took many trips with the Sierra Club to paint landscapes.
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Terry Tempest Williams on the Park Idea (00:46) |
Terry Tempest Williams grew up in Utah, where she pursued her two passions – English and environmental science – at the state university and then went on to become a renowned author, naturalist, and environmental activist. Most of her adult life has been spent in wild lands, from the deserts of the Southwest, to the Rockies, to remote regions of Alaska.
She is the author of many books, including Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place and most recently Mosaic: Finding Beauty in a Broken World. She edited Testimony: Writers Speak on Behalf of Utah Wilderness, which helped lead to the creation of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Create personalized postcards using images from The National Parks series and email them to friends or family.
Download some of the glorious images from the documentary to enjoy on your desktop.
Discover the "hidden" stories of the national parks that explore the role of minorities in the creation and protection of the parks.
You own 391 national parks. Come for a visit and take away the experience of a lifetime. Help the National Park Service make America's Best Idea even better!
THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA'S BEST IDEA is a co-production of
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