Created by cutting into a complete, already-published book, the tree-cuts explore ideas of personal geography and self-improvement by returning the book to its original form – that of the tree itself.

“Cleavers Stroke” and “Tall Timber” address ebb and flow of cycles of assertion and dominance between the two forces of Man and Nature.

Cleavers Stroke, unframed, 2011

Detroit, once the nation’s fourth largest city ad epitome of US industrial wealth and might, has been in decline for almost a half-century. The city is now one-third empty land –more abandoned property than any American city except post-Katrina New Orleans. Cleavers Stroke uses Detroit as a metaphor for a collapsing sense of ego, self-destruction and listless disillusionment. I see the image components as being the consequence of human action, or lack, while the tree, and nature, as the redeemer.

Tall Timber, unframed, 2011

Lanting photographed the tropical rainforests in order to show their Kaleidoscopic nature saying that “while the essence of photography is to show, jungles hide, or at best, suggest”. In this piece the photographic lens becomes the human perspective, searching to find, fix and process unexplored arenas for growth or materials for expansion. Nature here is thriving, yet as the title suggests, it is her resources that are under observation.

Call To Arms - Tree Cut from Military Aircraft (2010).

A World We Make - Tree Cut from Christie's catalogue: The Art Collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé (2010).

Boughs Of Time - (2009). Tree Cut from In Pictures, The Journalists Vision. (2010)