You’ve seen his photos of national parks, but do you know his name?

“Ansel Adams: Before & After”

Through March 20 at Booth Western Art Museum. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays (until 8 p.m. Thursdays), 1-5 p.m. Sundays. $10; $8 age 65 and up; $7 students with an ID; free age 12 and under. 501 Museum Drive, Cartersville. 770-387-1300, www.boothmuseum.org.

George Grant is the most famous nature photographer you’ve never heard of.

The creator of more than 30,000 images for the National Park Service, Grant’s lush, stark landscapes of Yosemite and Yellowstone and Glacier national parks beckoned visitors to these magnificent natural preserves from brochures, magazines and other advertising.

But as the Park Service’s official photographer, Grant’s name was rarely included: The pictures were generally credited to the NPS.

As a result, Grant’s reputation, and his fortune, remained modest. While his contemporary Ansel Adams became a multimillionaire, Grant put away his cameras after he was forced into an early retirement, saying that the hobby was too expensive.

Two Atlanta writers, married couple Ren and Helen Davis, stumbled on Grant while researching a book about the Civilian Conservation Corps, and they decided Grant needed to receive some attention.

The result is their book, "Landscapes for the People: George Alexander Grant, First Chief Photographer of the National Park Service" (University of Georgia Press, $39.95). The couple will discuss the book at 2 p.m. Jan. 30 at the visitor's center in the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.

Like most viewers, Helen Davis associated black-and-white images of majestic landscapes with the photographer Ansel Adams. And it’s no wonder. Adams’ images have been reproduced thousands of times in coffee-table books, calendars, greeting cards and limited-edition prints, one of which sold for $609,000 at auction in 2006.

(Adams' work can be seen through March 20 at the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, which has 23 original Adams prints in the 100-plus-work exhibit called "Ansel Adams: Before & After.")

So when she and her husband were looking through the Park Service archives in Charleston, W. Va., she was surprised to see Grant’s signature on the back of one photo after another. Who was this guy?

Grant was a Pennsylvania native who was stationed in Wyoming during World War I and fell in love with the magnificent landscapes there. He was hired to be a ranger at Yellowstone in 1922, and took photographs when he had the chance. After a six-year stint teaching photography back east, he became a full-time photographer for the service in 1929, crisscrossing the country to visit nearly every park, monument and historic site.

He traveled in a panel truck he called The Hearse, which included a rolling darkroom, and sometimes trotted by horseback to less-accessible locales.

(In other National Park news, Georgia's has national parkland, just not national parks, but the state's parks are on a path to grow in size and stature; here are several proposals.)

Grant’s budget came under attack in later years, and his job was eliminated in 1954. He died 10 years later of chronic respiratory disease. But his photographs, usually made with a 5-by-7 view camera in crisply focused black and white, continue to tell of what documentary filmmaker Ken Burns called “America’s best idea.”

Tracing Grant’s career involved some detective work. Grant never married and had no children. He kept meticulous journals, noting locations, exposure times, weather and lenses used, but a family member thought the journals had no value and threw most of them away. Only two survived.

The Davises also found that few historians were familiar with Grant. “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” the six-episode documentary by Burns, uses Grant’s images, but not his name, said Helen Davis. One of Grant’s colleagues planned a book about Grant, “but he died before he was able to get it off the ground,” said Ren Davis.

But the Brookhaven couple was persistent. She is a retired educator and he is a retired health care administrator. They pursue their writing projects for the joy of it, though, said Ren Davis, their royalties won't cover their travel expenses.

What they admired about Grant was his similar tenacity, and his vision. “He dreamed of a job that didn’t exist, and worked hard to be prepared for the opportunity if that position was created,” said Ren Davis. “He never lost sight of what he wanted to do.”

They plan additional appearances later this spring. You can keep up with the Davises on their "Landscapes for the People" Facebook page.