Courtesy QT Luong
Gateway Arch in fog at night. Gateway Arch National Park, St Louis, Missouri, USA.
One week after the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial was designated as the Gateway Arch National Park, QT Luong, who has spent the last 25 years photographing the previous 59 parks, traveled to St. Louis to photograph the newest national park.
Luong was the first to photograph the 59 parks in large format, using the traditional wooden film cameras used by Ansel Adams and other master photographers. “Large format allows you to create images with so much detail that you can really explore the image itself,” says Luong. “And you have to realize, I started the project 25 years ago. Back then there was no digital photograph so if you wanted to produce an image with this detail, there was no alternative.”
Courtesy Buddy Squires
QT Luong with large format camera in the backcountry of Kings Canyon National Park.
With his trip to St. Louis, Luong becomes the first photographer to photograph all 60 national parks in large format. “To me, National Parks are the most spectacular places in America. They are nature’s wonders–the largest mountains, the tallest trees, the largest caves and canyons. They are pristine because they are protected, but at the same time, they are made accessible to the public.”
Before he arrived in St. Louis, he found the new designation a bit “odd.” He questioned how a small park in the city could compare to Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon. “I was expecting just another monument,” he admits.
qt luong
The scale and shimmer of the Arch won him over.
“I’ve visited other monuments in America–the Statue of Liberty, Mt. Rushmore, the Washington Monument, and to me, the Arch surpasses them all,” he says. “The combination of the size and they way it reflects the light, as a photographer, I found it quite moving.”
Luong is the author of Treasured Lands: A Photographic Odyssey through America's National Parks
