The forests of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are being devastated by beech bark disease, an invasive fungus spread by sap-feeding insects that has already killed an estimated 2.5-million American beech trees. At Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, 80-90% of mature beech trees will likely die.
In November 2020, I bushwhacked into a remote area of the park and measured out a 10’x10′ square. I stepped inside and didn’t step out again for 65 hours. In the 135° spread beyond my quadrant camp, many beech behemoths had already toppled. I restrained my photographic technique exclusively to vertical camera movement in accordance with the vertical nature of trees. The forest canopy appears to dissipate in the sky, symbolic of the space that remains when big trees fall.
I returned in each of the next three seasons to repeat the process. Consistent with annual forest rhythms, I blended each season individually before combining the four standalone works into one singular piece.
