Our Story

For 18 years, Ed and Sandy Gowland lived on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and believed they were already in paradise. But being a nature and landscape photographer for over 40 years, Ed felt it was time to expand his palette. Upon Ed's retirement in 2019, the couple bought a travel trailer and left their home in Kitty Hawk to explore America.

Four years, 85,000 miles, 15 National Parks and countless State Parks later, Ed had 100’s of photos to share. The website GentleSeas.com was born, where the couple sells posters, prints and t-shirts featuring the National, State and Local parks the couple has visited. Sandy is a sewing pattern and clothing designer, and found designing graphics around Ed’s photographs came naturally to her. These graphics are sold on the t-shirts.
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The t-shirts have been very well received. GentleSeas customers keep commenting that the unique graphic is not available in the parks’ gift shops. They also make wonderful gifts for that hard to buy for person.

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 In 2023, they created the Giving Back Program, where a portion of the sale of each product will be donated back to the park featured on the product. These donations will be sent to the non-profit partners of each park, which use the funds for educational programs which enhance the visitors’ park experience.

Philanthropists at heart, the Gowlands are very excited about this new Giving Back program. The parks’ non-profit partners are also excited, and have endorsed the donation program.

​Ed and Sandy plan for at least 4 more years of travel, and hope to triple the number of National Parks they have visited. They still call North Carolina “home” and plan to return there once their travels are complete.

As they continue to travel, new prints, T-shirt graphics and products (hats and totes coming soon) are regularly added to the website.
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You can visit Gentle Seas Photography online at GentleSeas.com (Social Media: @GentleSeasPhotography). The couple also has a travel channel on Youtube where they share places they have visited, and what it’s like to live in a travel trailer (Social Media: @OverTheHills2019).