In photos: honouring the remnants of America’s ancient forests

A new monograph crafts an exquisite portrait of the country’s last ancient woodlands.

Hail­ing from Holyoke, Mass­a­chu­setts, pho­tog­ra­ph­er Mitch Epstein came of age dur­ing the height of mid-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can sub­ur­bia. Just beyond the per­fect­ly man­i­cured res­i­den­tial devel­op­ments of his child­hood lay the majes­tic Berk­shires, a north­ern seg­ment of the Appalachi­an Moun­tains that have become the hall­mark of New England’s picaresque land­scape for centuries.

The forests of the Berk­shires beck­oned as an escape as I got old­er in the 50s and 60s,” Epstein says. By the time I reached ado­les­cence, I was uncom­fort­able with the sub­ur­ban built envi­ron­ment. Nature was a place to get lost in; it was chaos and reju­ve­nat­ing in a way that felt wel­come, and not alien.”

Epstein lat­er returned to the land of his child­hood while research­ing a new project explor­ing the trees that had inspired New Eng­land writ­ers like Her­man Melville, Emi­ly Dick­in­son, and Robert Frost. He entered the Mohawk Trail State For­est with an 8×10 field cam­era and lens­es in his back­pack, no gear, and lit­tle hik­ing expe­ri­ence, for an encounter that would change his life.

Maple Glade Hoh Rain Forest, Olympic National Park, Washington 2017

Epstein left the for­est with a vision that would become Old Growth, his 17th mono­graph and exhi­bi­tion now on view at Yancey Richard­son in New York. The series brings togeth­er pho­tographs made between 2017 – 2024, craft­ing an exquis­ite por­trait of America’s last ancient woodlands.

Since the inva­sion of Euro­pean colonis­ers 500 years ago, more than 95% of indige­nous forests have been destroyed. Now pro­tect­ed by the Bureau of Land Man­age­ment and the U.S. For­est Ser­vice, the remain­ing old-growth forests con­tain trees old­er than the nation itself, dat­ing back hun­dreds, if not thou­sands, of years.

Patriarch Grove, Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, California, 2021;
Bigleaf Maple, Olympic National Park, Washington 2021

Epstein pho­tographed these Amer­i­can majesties with rev­er­ence and respect, allow­ing us to see both lit­er­al­ly and metaphor­i­cal­ly the for­est through the trees. Here we see super­stars” like the giants of California’s leg­endary Sequoia Nation­al Park and the fabled Joshua trees of Cima Dome in the Mojave Nation­al Pre­serve, along­side the less­er-known bald cypress­es that rise from the Black Riv­er in Cape Fear, North Carolina.

I was out on trails, some­times walk­ing sev­er­al miles a day with gear on my back and it gave me a greater respect for what the fron­tier pho­tog­ra­phers did back in 19th cen­tu­ry,” Epstein says.

I made three trips to make pho­tographs in the ancient bristle­cone pine for­est in White Moun­tains of Cal­i­for­nia,” he con­tin­ues point­ing to the scenes of wiz­ened trees sprout­ing from moun­tain­ous ter­rain. It’s impos­si­ble to describe the utter enchant­ment and oth­er world­li­ness of this land­scape, with trees that have lived for thou­sands of years, in what seems like inhos­pitable set of circumstances.”

Sitka Spruce Tree of Life, Olympic National Park, Washington, 2021

The exhi­bi­tion also includes For­est Waves, a new mul­ti-chan­nel video and sound instal­la­tion that brings view­ers in the Berk­shires as the sea­sons change, immers­ing them in the expe­ri­ence with sound­scapes by tonal musi­cians Mike Tam­buro and Samer Ghadry made iin these same woods.

There’s the mys­tery of wilder­ness, but there’s also the pro­found sci­ence that we still have so much to learn from,” Epstein says. If we don’t pro­tect a lit­tle bit does remain, we’re real­ly just shoot­ing our­selves in the foot.”

Congress Trail, Sequoia National Park, California, 2021
Sequoia National Park California, 2022
Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, California, 2022
Bald Cypresses, Black River, Cape Fear, North Carolina, 2023

Mitch Epstein: Old Growth is on view Sep­tem­ber 5 – Octo­ber 19, 2024 at Yancey Richard­son in New York. The series will be on view in a solo exhi­bi­tion at Gal­lerie d’Italia in Turin, Italy from Octo­ber 16, 2024 – March 2, 2025. The book is pub­lished by Stei­dl.

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