"Rise thee from care before the dawn, and seek adventure.
Let the noon find thee by other lakes,
and the night overtake thee everywhere at home."

from Walden, Henry David Thoreau

2.2 billion years ago, photosynthesizing bacteria began to release oxygen into the atmosphere, which within millions of years changed forever the course of Earth’s history. Today, the Earth has a fledgling species that within only a few hundred years has influenced nearly every aspect of Earth's biosphere — Man.

By geological standards, such tremendous change in so short a time is an unprecedented phenomenon. Due to Man's natural tendency to alter and form his environment, to utilize and transform all that he touches, the Earth is entering a new phase in its 4.6 billion year history. What this new phase brings, no human, or his technology can know for sure. But for humans, for thousands of species, for the Earth itself, it is a fateful moment.

On a journey covering over 21,000 miles and nearly a third of the continental United States and Canada, artist Josh Jennings, his wife, and three children set out to discover what lies behind the intimate, sometimes antagonistic, often contradictory relationship between humans and their home, planet Earth.

Josh Jennings documented this relationship through the lenses of his 4x5 and 35mm cameras. Following in the footsteps of the early explorer-photographer Frank Hurley, Jennings developed his negatives on the road and presents those photographs both on this website and in exhibits in Los Angeles, Houston and Germany.

Jennings filmed during the journey — of his family on the road and in nature, of Earth's grandeur, of its natural beauty, of Man's dependency on Earth's resources and how that dependency has altered the Earth, of Man's spiritual relationship with Earth and how Earth has nurtured that relationship.

This journey was and is taken to record the past, the present, and the future
of Earth with Man.

The journey started in Houston, Texas on January 15, 2018 and ended 8 months and 21,000 miles later back in Houston. The family of five traveled with a truck equipped with a small slide-in camper and a tent and camped in national and state parks along the way.

The below maps show their route — an overview map of the complete journey as well as detailed maps of each leg.