Our July 2019 issue of Outdoor Photographer celebrates the beauty of our national parks. Feature stories in this issue include the 5 best parks to visit this summer, rafting Grand Canyon for a new photo perspective, and 10 highlights from an epic year-long adventure Jonathan Irish took to photograph every national park.

On the cover is a stunning image taken by Irish in Redwood National Park, California. Here’s the story behind the shot.

outdoor photographer cover july 2019 photo by jonathan irish

“I had been wanting to photograph the giant California redwoods for a really long time, so a National Geographic assignment taking me to all of the national parks during the centennial of the National Park Service was a dream come true.

“This was a perfect spring morning among these majestic and beautiful trees. I spent over four hours this day walking along the trail, trying not to get neck soreness from constantly gazing upwards. I was overcome by just how tall the trees are, and I remember thinking that having a person in my images would help show the incredible scale. However, I was alone, and I hadn’t seen another soul the entire morning. So I did what all photographers do—I improvised.

“I set my camera on a tripod, framed the scene I envisioned, set the proper exposure, turned on the interval timer to take a photo once every two seconds, and commenced to walk on the log. Yes, this is essentially a selfie. The camera ended up taking maybe 70 or 80 photos as I blindly struck different postures, listening for the sound of the camera click to change my pose. I am sure I looked rather silly up there, but who cares. This ended up being one of my favorite clicks from the assignment.”

–Jonathan Irish

The July 2019 issue is available now in a variety of digital formats including Apple News+ and will be on newsstands beginning Tuesday, June 25.

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