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Preserved for the nation: One photographer's painstaking portrait of America's ever-changing landscape
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For decades celebrated American photographer Carol Highsmith has captured photographs in all 50 states. Her thousands of pictures showcase the huge variety of U.S. habitats and landscapes.
Her incredible body of work is being kept by the Library of Congress, where it can be inspire and inform future generations.
'What's important to me is to record America during my lifetime so that many, many years from now, we can see what we looked like, so we have a sense of who we are,' Highsmith told CBS News.
'Things are changing for the good and the bad, and so it's important to catch that,' Highsmith told Martha Teichner of CBS. 'Now, do I know what will be important? No, I don't. I'm clueless.'
Here and now: The Jackrabbit Trading Post on Route 66 in Joseph City, Arizona
Jagged peaks: The Denali National Park in Alaska
Snack time: Ruth and Wimpy's Lobster stand in Hancock, Maine
Creator: Photographer Carol M. Highsmith in Monument Valley, the Navajo tribal park in northern Arizona and southern Utah
Rebuilding: Construction at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan in November 2009
Prairie: The Badlands National Park, in southwest South Dakota
Destruction: A New Orleans house damaged during Hurricane Katrina in 2005
Drawing attention: A sign for the Lollipop Motel in Wildwood, New Jersey
Isolated: Monument Valley on the Utah/Arizona border
Urban grit: A bright mural in Baltimore, Maryland
Bright lights: An aerial photograph taken at night from a helicopter of the Las Vegas Strip
Patriotic pop: Advertising and an American flag on Route 66, Seligman, Arizona
Attractions: Motels and neon art in Las Vegas, Nevada
History: A mural on Route 66 in Truxton, Arizona
Self-portrait: Carol Highsmith photographs herself via a broken mirror during the restoration of the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Bright: Colorful art on the façade of a building in the Mission District, San Francisco, California
Tough: A saguaro cactus near Tucson, Arizona
Cornucopia: The Rusty Bolt souvenir store on Route 66 in Seligman, Arizona
Blue-sky thinking: Clouds and a mural on Route 66 in Tucumcari, New Mexico
Roots: Kate Carter sitting at a barn door on the farm where Carol Highsmith's grandfather and great grandfather were born
Go faster stripe: A Corvette car at Hackberry General Store, on Route 66, Hackberry, Arizona