Texas in Pictures: Natural Photography of the Lone Star State

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Texas Heartland: a Hill Country Year / by Jim Bones & John Graves
A native of the hill country, photographer Jim Bones has illuminated his heritage in this wonderful collection of natural images, detailing some of the Texas region’s most endearing landscapes along with several of its lesser-known but notable photogenic niches. If you’re looking to travel semi-locally this year, this book of well-preserved landscapes and wildlife may narrow your options. Author and journalist John Graves annotates each impression by providing a backdrop for Bones’ choice representations.

Deep East Texas / by David H. Gibson
East Texas may not evoke that woodsy tranquility so often associated with New England, Yellowstone or the Redwoods, but noted photographer David Gibson (not a Texan) captures this mental portrait with his sparkling renditions of the region’s natural beauty. In his numerous images—all shaded in grayscale black and white—of the state’s less glamourized territory, Gibson displays the locales of Nacogdoches, Jacksonville, Tyler, and San Augustine with a transcendent pastoral splendor seldom glanced along its many roadways and thoroughfares.

Chronicles of the Big Bend: a Photographic Memoir of Life on the Border / by W.D. Smithers
Mountains in Texas? If there’s one place Gulf Coast Texans are most unfamiliar with concerning their Lone Star heritage, it’s Big Bend. Not so much for the territory’s legacy as the state’s only national park as for its uncharacteristic—and yet breathtakingly beautiful—diversity of landscapes. With the eye of a naturalist, Smithers removes any remaining secrets about this corner of the state where river, desert, forest, plains and mountains converge to complete one of Texas’ most renowned outdoorsy-type hotspots (even if it is, admittedly, waaayyy ‘off the beaten path’).

Wish Me a Rainbow: a Pictorial / by Jesse Ponce
Who knew that Texas City, a locale known most prominently for its industrial prowess, possessed such elegance? Local photographer and author Jesse Ponce invites those who may take for granted their town’s organic beauty to chance another look at all that this coastal locale has to offer. Images of both flora and fauna (Texas City is quite a well-kept secret among ornithologists who annually monitor scores of bird species in and around the region) wonderfully preserve the city’s lesser-known but all the more essential natural features.