Book Review: 'Our National Monuments' by Q.T. Luong

[Comments have been added.]

Our National Monuments: America's Hidden Gems by Q.T. Luong. Terra Galleria Press, 308 pages.

Forward by Sally Jewell; Marine National Monuments text and photographs by Ian Shive; with contributions from 27 citizen organizations protecting our public lands and waters at risk.

Published November 9, 2021. 5.2 lbs., 12.25 x 10 x 1.3 inches. Available at Amazon and The Book Depository.

Guest post by Geoff Wittig

Landscape photography is in my humble opinion the ideal avocation. It provides a legitimate excuse to seek solitude, and to get away from the virtual existence of computer screen or tablet in favor of the real thing. There’s a deep literature supporting the mental and physical health benefits of spending time outdoors immersed in nature. (Check out Florence Williams’ charming recent book The Nature Fix. You’ll thank me later.) Coming away with some beautiful photographs is almost a fringe benefit.

However, landscape photography is one of those pursuits that is simultaneously quite easy to do, and exceptionally difficult to do well. The headlong advance of digital capture over the past two decades has reduced some of the technical barriers. But the determination to hike repeatedly to a remote location until the light is perfect, and the ability to craft a beautiful composition, can’t be bought. They still reside a few inches behind the viewfinder. For more than thirty years I have lived near the gorge of the Genesee River and Letchworth State Park. After countless attempts, I have managed perhaps 35 good photographs, and five or six I’m genuinely proud of. Ansel Adams famously said that "Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop." Evidently I need to get out more.

This meandering digression is intended to express my admiration for the herculean achievement Our National Monuments represents. As photographer and author Q.T. Luong explains in his introduction, the National Monuments resulted from a 1906 law permitting Presidential protection of lands of "natural or cultural significance" without the prolonged legislative process required to create a National Park. This facilitated protecting lands one step ahead of loggers, miners and rapacious collectors of Native American petroglyphs. Such protection remains incomplete and subject to revocation; in 2017 a wide-ranging Federal review threatened to greatly reduce the size of several Monuments and open others to resource extraction.

Unlike the National Parks, most of the Monuments have few if any tourist amenities. Consequently, exploring them is not for the faint of heart. Cellphone service is frequently non-existent, and visitors are well advised to have adequate wilderness skills and provisions. These challenges make the quality of Luong’s images all the more impressive.

Physically the book is lovely, with very nice matte paper and high quality varnished photo-reproductions. As with the photographer's previous book Treasured Lands, text is again typeset in a modest sized but very readable digital version of the neoclassical Baskerville font. Each section is introduced by a representative of a conservation group devoted to preserving the Monument in question. The photographs are consistently beautiful, running the gamut from stunning vistas in perfect evening light, to dramatic storm-scapes, to telling details. Without exception they are technically immaculate, stunningly detailed, with a beautiful yet restrained color palette. There are a handful of aerial photographs which blend unobtrusively with more conventional photographs. The sections on marine Monuments in the Pacific Ocean, including lovely underwater images, were provided by Ian Schive, who has published several books on the National Parks himself.

As with Treasured Lands, each section is followed by very welcome thumbnails describing the photographs’ settings and a map showing the locations of the images. Adventuresome readers are offered access to more extensive PDF guides and maps to assist with visits to these sites for a nominal $15. Those interested can check the book out at its companion website, www.ournationalmonuments.com, which includes access to sample page spreads and thumbnails.

Readers can appreciate this book from several perspectives. The photographs are beautiful, and they provide a look at remarkable landscapes quite literally far from the beaten track. They’re an introduction to another vast range of public lands wilder and more remote than the more familiar National Parks. The solace of nature and wild places remains every bit as relevant as when Thoreau penned Walden.

Geoff Wittig

Available from Amazon, The Book Depository, and the book's website. NOTE that it's better for the photographer if you order through the website; also, you can get signed books and collector's editions with original prints there.  —Ed.

Book o' the Week

This is the book that sold 1,100 copies through our links, back when it first came out in 2007. It's essentially a catalogue raisonné of the work of the iconic American landscapist. I suppose it won't sell any more, since everyone already has a copy, but the link can be a portal to Amazon for your holiday shopping. Thank you kindly for helping support The Online Photographer!

The following logo is also a link if you click on it:

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Jeff: "One wouldn’t expect that a computer science wiz, living in France, would ultimately turn a small photo hobby into such ambitious and admirable photographic and book projects covering the U.S. at its best. Plus he seems like a very nice fellow, as his interview with Kevin Raber shows…."

Ugo Bessi: "By the way, it's worth mentioning that, in a previous life, Q. T. Luong made important contributions to computer vision; if I'm not wrong, he studied how to reconstruct a three-dimensional scene from a couple of stereo photographs."

Michel Hardy-Vallée: "It's worth pointing that QT Luong is also at the Internet epicentre of large format photography. His 1995 info page has been perused by many an aspiring LFer, and their further questions have been answered and debated in the Large Format Photography Forum. Anybody who ever thought about view cameras in English has laid their eyes on QT Luong's contribution at least once."

Luke: "Geoff W. should contribute to all your book reviews."

Rick Denney: "As the most minor of the moderators on the Large Format Photography Forum, I've long known QT (who owns the LFPF) and deeply respect everything he does and has done for large-format photography in particular. I was pleased to see this new work, and it has just arrived, still wrapped in plastic, waiting for me to have the time to give it the correct consideration. I need to refresh my supply of Scotch first, because I expect to be humbled and will need solace.

"What amazes me is how good photo books are these days for such small prices. The market is not kind to such efforts, but then we all benefit even if QT is likely required to live with only the satisfaction of work well done. People pay the least for what other people are willing to do for free, and that doom sweeps up most of the arts, leaving much of it for those who can fund their own projects. Thankfully, QT has stepped up."

Comments

[Monika Göhmann]

Dear Mike,
I would love to buy something using an affiliate link on your site, but the links always take me to Amazon.com. Buying there is not feasible for me, but it might be possible for you to use a link that forwards people to Amazon in their respective countries. If you find the time, maybe you could look into that possibility?
Thanks,
Monika from Germany

[Yes, thank you Monika, but I no longer have an Affiliate account with Amazon Germany. I got afoul of Amazon Canada during the height of the first wave of COVID, and they temporarily banned me. Several months later, all the other Amazons banned me too, in solidarity with Amazon Canada. Amazon US eventually reinstated me, but I cannot even get replies from Amazon UK and Amazon Germany. But thank you for trying, and for caring! --Mike]

[Bill Tyler]

There's a video interview with Q.T. Luong over at https://photopxl.com/conversation-with-qt-luong-our-national-monuments/

[Ken Tanaka]

Thank you for the heads-up on "Our National Monuments", Geoff. Although I am not an enthusiastic fan of scenic landscape photography, per se, I certainly recognize the broader accomplishment here; Q.T. Luong has created a truly monumental survey work of some of America's most magnificent land treasures. Just contemplating the effort makes me want to hide and nap.

But, sadly, I expect his effort to become somewhat lost in the crowd of scenic photo table books created collectively and published in NatGeo-style. The book looks well-designed, and richly printed. The spreads look both lovely and informative. But the "Our National Monuments" dresses the work in a drab, referential faux-grandioseness that all but assures a future in the sale bins. A title and jacket design that explicitly invited energetic investigation and travel reference among younger people would have served this work much, much better. "Going, Going Before It's Gone: The Great America You've Never Seen".

[Eric Brody]

I have followed QT's career for many years. I am the proud owner of both of his books. As an avid photographer of the west, I have only admiration for both the scale of his work and its excellence. I'll never reach his heights but he serves as a humble example of what the best really is in the world of landscape. Thanks for featuring his work and no, we're not related.