
Urban Forest
Images of Trees in the Human Landscape
Sierra Club Books (Publisher)
1st Edition
Published on 14. October 2003
Book
Hardback
144 pages
978-1-57805-096-3 (ISBN)
Description
Beyond their esthetic and utilitarian importance, urban trees seem to fill a deeper human need. Perhaps they are reminders of the inexorable cycles of the natural world. Perhaps they serve as eddies and rills of slowness and sureness within the frantic rush of our urban environment. For more than two decades, photographer David Paul Bayles has been making images of trees in cities and suburbs--places of tension, as he puts it, between "what we build and what we grow." This beautifully designed and produced volume showcases his extraordinary vision of urban trees and their often precarious, sometimes triumphant place in the human landscape. Initially drawn to his subject by "the balance and harmony and beauty between the manmade structure and the tree," Bayles has also found and photographed plenty of imbalance and human folly along the way. His images are laconic, almost deadpan, yet at the same time infused with irony, humor, and compassion. They avoid the easy trap of politicization, allowing and encouraging each of us to see the relationship between humankind and trees--in all of its complexity--for ourselves. This much is certain: Those who delve into the pages of this remarkable book will never again look at the trees around them in quite the same way.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Berkeley
United States
Publishing group
Counterpoint
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
52 duotones, 28 colour photographs
Dimensions
Height: 248 mm
Width: 292 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
1219 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-57805-096-3 (9781578050963)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
David Paul Bayles has photographed the human-tree relationship for more than twenty years.His images have appeared in solo and group exhibitions at galleries and museums throughout the West, and his work is included in numerous public and private collections around the world, including those of the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris; the Helmut Gernsheim Collection in Lugano, Switzerland; and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Bayles' photographs have also been published in such national periodicals as Architectural Record, Architecture,Outdoor Photographer, Photo Metro, and Photographer's Forum. Images from this book were recently featured in the Los Angeles Times Magazine. Bayles makes his home in southern California.
Photographs by