Walton County, Florida is home to Scenic Highway 30A, a collection of small beach towns where the sugar white sand meets the emerald waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Along this coastline are some of the rarest geological formations on the planet called coastal dune lakes. Since 2017, artist Jonah Allen has created the most comprehensive collection of aerial imagery of these dune lakes and surrounding coastline.

Join Jonah Allen on a helicopter journey into the sky, to fly above this coastline, and follow the path that water from these coastal dune lakes into the ocean. What makes dune lakes incredibly unique is that their mostly freshwater content sits just feet away from the Gulf of Mexico. Following a heavy rain, as the lakes accumulate water, the sand is breached, causing the lake water to rush into the ocean. Transfixed by this confluence of energy, where tea colored water meets the emerald sea, Jonah made over 50,000 aerial images focusing on this exchange.

In this long-awaited large-format coffee table book, discover the story of the dune lakes of Walton County, Florida as told through over 260, exquisitely reproduced aerial photographs that inspire awe and challenge how you see the world. Featuring never-before-seen images from Jonah’s archive and personal writings that invite you on an intimate journey through the sky above 30A, this book is a voice for this incredible landscape in the face of a rapidly developing world. A portion of all proceeds will be donated to the Choctawhatchee Basin Alliance, which is a non-profit that does water quality research on these lakes and surrounding waterways.

CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS

Brian Kelley - Florida Georgia Line

John Burns Jr - local biologist