Photograph America

In my post about my trip to Cuyahoga National Park, I mentioned that my friend Bob and I had picked out the locations we planned to photograph based on an article in Photograph America. I mentioned that Photograph America was a great publication, but that it was a topic for a different post……

So let me tell you about Photograph America. It is a quarterly newsletter put out by photographer Robert Hitchman. Hitchman travels the country on photo journeys and documents his experiences. This includes what he found worthwhile photographing, how to get around the location and often places to stay and where to eat economically. I find his descriptions of what to shoot the best aspect of the newsletter. If you are making a relatively short duration trip to a location, you can put together an essentially completely planned itinerary prior to actually going, so you don’t waste a good deal of time ‘wandering’.

Of course, that isn’t to say that you will find all of Hitchman’s choices perfect for you. For example, on the Cuyahoga trip, we found that we really weren’t all that ‘taken’ by one of Hitchman’s top locations to shoot in the park. But that wasn’t a big problem for several reasons. First of all, because we knew exactly where we were going we didn’t waste much time getting there, and were able to tell pretty quickly that the location didn’t hold as much interest for us as it did for Hitchman. We were then able to move on to the next location, which we found much more enjoyable to photograph.

In addition to subscribing, Hitchman also offers the opportunity to purchase back issues of the newsletter. You can either purchase them all or just the ones that are focused on a specific area of the country that you might be interested in.

I recommend Photograph America very highly to anyone who is interested in traveling to locations for nature photography. The newsletters are very detailed and extremely helpful in planning a photography trip. They are, however, somewhat more focused on the West and Southwest since that is where Hitchman lives. That isn’t to say there isn't coverage of the South, East or Midwest, there certainly is, though not as frequently or to as many locations as in the West. Subscriptions are now available in PDF as well as in print format.