Photographer Nick Zungoli has spent decades chasing the beauty of the natural world, but it was a night atop an Icelandic glacier that changed everything. “I was looking up at the stars, and it really transformed my whole life,” he recalls. “I became obsessed with recording nature from that point on.”
In his latest book, In the Garden of Eden, Sugar Loaf-based Zungoli turns his lens on Central America, where he lived for months at a time between 2014 and 2025. The work departs from his earlier travel-focused collections, like those on the Mekong River and southern Italy. This time, his aim is both personal and political: to awaken readers to the fragile beauty of the Earth, which he calls the real Garden of Eden.
“Everything seemed new and alive and still changing,” says Zungoli of Central America’s lush landscapes and rich biodiversity. “I realized this wasn’t just a book about a place. It was about the whole planet.”
Shot across Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, In the Garden of Eden captures birds in flight, volcanoes at sunset, and intimate studies of leaves, stones, and waterways. Mixed in are portraits of the people he lived among—communities navigating both the bounty and inequality of their environment. Guatemala, Zungoli notes, has one of the highest numbers of private helicopters per capita in Latin America despite its widespread poverty.
Alongside the images, Zungoli weaves in his own reflections and quotes from John Muir and Thich Nhat Hanh, balancing awe for nature with urgent environmental advocacy. His foreword mourns the destruction caused by climate change; the afterword calls readers to protect what remains.
The book’s message is driven home in images like Starry Dawn, a dreamlike photograph of Lago de Atitlan. A solitary dock juts into the still water, a boat drifting beneath the volcano’s shadow as stars shine through a pollution-free sky.
Zungoli has published seven books and sold over 50,000 prints, but this may be his most personal project yet. “My work is about the beauty of nature—that’s what got me into photography,” he says. “I’ve got something to say, and this book is the vehicle for that. Live a little more gently on the planet.”
This article appears in August 2025.
