For more than two decades, the Colorado-born photographer Pete McBride has documented the overwhelming beauty and the gathering threats to the Colorado River. Now with the lowest snowpack on record in his home state and the basin’s reservoirs approaching historic lows, McBride is stepping out from behind the camera to write a book detailing a lifelong love affair with his “backyard river.” Part memoir and part travelogue from his National Geographic and other magazine assignments, Witness to Water is a cry from McBride’s heart about a river ecosystem being strained to the breaking point.

Other water art and media news:

• KLCC (Eugene, Ore.): Oregon on the Record podcast: Film on native youth descending the Klamath