QT Luong was honored with Sierra Club's Ansel Adams Award for Photography

Two contributors to the National Parks Traveler, photographer QT Luong and writer Craig Pittman, have been honored by the Sierra Club for their achievements.

Luong, who has made a career capturing public lands across the United States, was honored by the Sierra Club with its 2022 Ansel Adams Award for Photography for his 2019 book, Treasured Lands: A Photographic Odyssey Through America's National Parks, and the 2021 book, Our National Monuments: America's Hidden Gems. The photographer's achievements go far beyond those two works, however. He was the first photographer to, at the time, capture all 58 "national parks" with a large format camera, and Ken Burns featured him in his documentary on national parks, The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009).

In his most recent book, Our National Monuments, Luong captured with his cameras the personalities of these landscapes -- national monuments -- that offer proof that while the National Park System is woefully crowded in some corners, there remain lands, and waters, to roam without masses of humanity around every corner. That they are not dubbed "national parks" is a benefit, not a slight, for that likely would bring the crowds that are choking some of the parks.

In thanking the Sierra Club, Luong said that he views the award "as recognition of a lifetime of work and couldn't be more honored and grateful. Back in 1993, as a fresh newcomer to America, viewing the prints of Ansel Adams in person was one of the decisive factors that set me on my course to photograph the national parks and other public lands. I subsequently studied the work of Galen Rowell, Robert Glenn Ketchum, William Neill, Frans Lanting, Tom Mangelsen, and James Balog among other past honorees. Several dozen books from this distinguished group sit on my shelves and have served as a continued source of inspiration to explore and cherish the natural world. I hope that my photographs can do the same for younger generations."

The Sierra Club honored Craig Pittman with its Rachel Carson Award

Pittman received the Sierra Club's Rachel Carson Award, which honors sustained achievement by professional journalists or authors. A former reporter for the Tampa Bay Times, Pittman is the author of six books. His most recent books are Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle to Save the Florida Panther (2020) and The State You're In: Florida Men, Florida Women, and Other Wildlife (2021). 

For the Traveler he has written about the search for rare cigar orchids in Big Cypress National Preserve, and about overfishing of the fisheries that touch Biscayne, Dry Tortugas, and Everglades national parks,